2008 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2008.

Events

January 1 – In the UK's 2008 New Year Honours List, Hanif Kureishi, Jenny Uglow, Peter Vansittart and Debjani Chatterjee are all rewarded for "services to literature".
February 29 – Belgian-born "Misha Defonseca" admits that her bestselling Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years is a literary forgery.
April – Signet Books announce they will cease to publish the American historical romance novelist Cassie Edwards after a dispute over plagiarism.
April 25 – The first Twitter novel, Small Places by Nicholas Belardes, is launched.
May 7–11 – The first Palestine Festival of Literature is held.
June 15 – Gore Vidal, asked in a New York Times interview how he felt about the death of his rival William F. Buckley, Jr., replies: "I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred."
July – Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children is the winner of a poll to select the "Best of the Booker".

New books

Fiction

Aravind Adiga
*The White Tiger
*Between the Assassinations
Uwem Akpan – Say You're One of Them
Paul Auster – Man in the Dark
Sebastian Barry – The Secret Scripture
Henry Bauchau – Le Boulevard périphérique
John Berger – From A to X
Charles Bock – Beautiful Children
Roberto Bolaño – 2666: A Novel
Christopher Buckley – Supreme Courtship
Alastair Campbell – All in the Mind
Martín Caparrós – A quien corresponda
Eleanor Catton – The Rehearsal
Wendy Coakley-Thompson – Triptych
Robert Crais – Chasing Darkness
Debra Dean – Confessions of a Falling Woman
Klaus Ebner – Hominid
Ralph Ellison – Three Days Before the Shooting...
Mathias Énard – Zone
Sebastian Faulks – Devil May Care
Keith Gessen – All the Sad Young Literary Men
Shanta Gokhale – Tyā varshī
Juan Goytisolo – Exiled from Almost Everywhere
Paul Griffiths – let me tell you
Lauren Groff – The Monsters of Templeton
Peter Handke – The Moravian Night
Johan Harstad – DARLAH
Zoë Heller – The Believers
Aleksandar Hemon – The Lazarus Project
M. H. Herlong – The Great Wide Sea
Samantha Hunt – The Invention of Everything Else
Siri Hustvedt – The Sorrows of an American
Karl Iagnemma – The Expeditions
Robert Juan-Cantavella – El Dorado
Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs – And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
Christian Kracht – Ich werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten
László Krasznahorkai – Seiobo There Below
Jhumpa Lahiri – Unaccustomed Earth
Kelly Link – Pretty Monsters
David Lodge – Deaf Sentence
James McBride – Song Yet Sung
Joe McGinniss Jr. – The Delivery Man
Ronit Matalon – The Sound of Our Steps
Lydia Millet – How the Dead Dream
Toni Morrison – A Mercy
Nunoe Mura – GeGeGe no Nyōbō
Joyce Carol Oates – My Sister, My Love
Sofi Oksanen – Puhdistus
Chuck Palahniuk – Snuff
Arturo Perez-Reverte – The Painter of Battles
Jodi Picoult – Change of Heart
José Luis Rodríguez Pittí – Sueños urbanos
Richard Price – Lush Life
Ruth Rendell – Portobello
Nina Revoyr – The Age of Dreaming
Nathaniel Rich – The Mayor's Tongue
Marilynne Robinson – Home
Charlotte Roche – Feuchtgebiete
Mary Ann Rodman – Jimmy's Stars
Philip Roth – Indignation
Salman Rushdie – The Enchantress of Florence
Will Self – The Butt
Curtis Sittenfeld – American Wife
Sjón – Rökkurbýsnir
Elizabeth Strout – Olive Kitteridge
Tom Rob Smith – Child 44
Joan Thomas – Reading by Lightning
David Turashvili – Flight from the USSR
John Updike – The Widows of Eastwick
Tobias Wolff – ''Our Story Begins''

Genre fiction

Jim Butcher – Small Favor
Matthew J. Costello – Doom 3: Worlds on Fire
Ursula K. Le Guin – Lavinia
Stephen King – Duma Key
Patricia A. McKillip – The Bell at Sealey Head
Stephenie Meyer – Breaking Dawn
Douglas Preston – Blasphemy
Matthew Stover – Caine Black Knife
Brent Weeks – ''The Way of Shadows''

Children and young people

David Almond
*The Savage
*Jackdaw Summer
Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson – Science Fair
Nick Bland – The Very Cranky Bear
Eoin Colfer – Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox
Frank Cottrell-Boyce – Desirable
Suzanne Collins – The Hunger Games
John Fardell – Manfred the Baddie
Mem Fox – Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes
Cornelia Funke – Inkdeath
John Green – Paper Towns
Brian Greene – Icarus At The Edge Of Time
Charlie Higson – Young Bond: By Royal Command
Minoru Kawakami and Satoyasu – Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere
Gordon Korman - Swindle
D. J. MacHale – Raven Rise
Patricia Martin - Lulu Atlantis and the Quest for True Blue Love
Jenny Nimmo – Charlie Bone and the Shadow of Badlock
Garth Nix – Superior Saturday
Arielle North Olson – More Bones: Scary Stories From Around The World
Christopher Paolini – Brisingr
Ridley Pearson - Steel Trapp: The Challenge
Amjed Qamar – Beneath My Mother's Feet
Rick Riordan – The Maze of Bones
Angie Sage – Queste
Michael Salzhauer – ''My Beautiful Mommy''

Drama

Salvatore Antonio – In Gabriel's Kitchen
Howard Brenton – Never So Good
Mary Higgins Clark – Where Are You Now?
Paul Dwyer – The Bougainville Photoplay Project
Nicholas de Jongh – Plague Over England
Johan Heldenbergh and Mieke Dobbels – The Broken Circle Breakdown featuring the cover-ups of Alabama
Ella Hickson – Eight
Sam Holcroft – Cockroach
Elaine Murphy – Little Gem
Lynn Nottage – Ruined
Tyler Perry – The Marriage Counselor
Taavi Vartia – ''Kaikkien aikojen Pertsa ja Kilu''

Non-fiction

The Academi – Encyclopaedia of Wales
Julie Andrews – Home: A Memoir of My Early Years
Kwame Anthony Appiah – Experiments in Ethics
Dan Ariely – Predictably Irrational
Margaret Atwood – Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth
Mary Beard – Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town
Dionne Brand – A Kind of Perfect Speech
Augusten Burroughs – A Wolf at the Table
Michael Chabon – Maps and Legends
D. K. Chakrabarti – The Battle for Ancient India: An essay in the sociopolitics of Indian archaeology
Rob Christensen – The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics
Sloane Crosley – I Was Told There'd Be Cake
John Duignan – The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology
Eminem – The Way I Am
Richard Florida – Who's Your City?
Raymond Geuss – Philosophy and Real Politics
Philip Hoare – Leviathan, or The Whale
Jim Holt – Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes
Chloe Hooper – The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island
B. B. Lal – Rāma, His Historicity, Mandir, and Setu: Evidence of Literature, Archaeology, and Other Sciences
Thomas Cairns Livingstone – Tommy's War: A First World War Diary 1913–1918
Minae Mizumura – The Fall of Language in the Age of English
Scholastique Mukasonga – La femme aux pieds nus
Haruki Murakami – What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Shuja Nawaz – Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within
Frances Osborne – The Bolter: Idina Sackville
Chris Pash – The Last Whale
Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow – Last Lecture
Peter Rees – The Other ANZACs
David Sedaris – When You Are Engulfed in Flames
Tore Skeie – Alv Erlingsson: fortellingen om en adelsmanns undergang
Vaclav Smil – Energy in Nature and Society: General Energetics of Complex Systems
Chunghee Sarah Soh – The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan
Shreve Stockton - The Daily Coyote
Jane Straus – The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation
Kate Summerscale – The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, or The Murder at Road Hill House
Ronnie Thompson – Screwed: The Truth About Life as a Prison Officer
Bjørn Christian Tørrissen – One for the Road
Barbara Walters – Audition: A Memoir
Russell Wangersky – Burning Down the House: Fighting Fires and Losing Myself
Meralda Warren and others – Mi Base side orn Pitcairn
Dagmar S. Wodtko, Britta Irslinger and Carolin Schneider – ''Nomina im Indogermanischen Lexikon''

Deaths

January 2 – George MacDonald Fraser, Scottish novelist and screenplay writer
January 3 – Henri Chopin, French poet
January 11 – Nancy Phelan, Australian writer
January 13 – Patricia Verdugo, Chilean journalist and writer
January 16 – Hone Tuwhare, New Zealand poet
January 17 – Edward D. Hoch, American detective fiction writer
January 26
*John Ardagh, Nyasaland-born English journalist and writer
*Abraham Brumberg, American writer and editor
January 29 – Margaret Truman, American crime novelist and singer
January 30 – Miles Kington, Northern Irish-born English journalist and writer
February 4 – Rose Hacker, English writer and journalist
February 7 – Richard Altick, American literary historian
February 8 – Phyllis A. Whitney, Japan-born American mystery writer
February 10 – Steve Gerber, American comic book writer
February 18 – Alain Robbe-Grillet, French novelist
February 21
*Archie Hind, Scottish novelist
*Robin Moore, American novelist and memoirist
February 22 – Stephen Marlowe, American science fiction and crime writer
February 28 – Julian Rathbone, English novelist
February 29 – Val Plumwood, Australian philosopher
March 16 – Jonathan Williams, American poet
March 19
*Arthur C. Clarke, English science fiction writer and futurologist
*Hugo Claus, Belgian writer in Flemish and English
March 23 – E. A. Markham, Montserrat poet, writer and activist
April 3 – Andrew Crozier, English poet and scholar
April 7 – Ludu Daw Amar, Burmese writer and journalist
April 13 – Robert Greacen, Irish poet
April 17
*Aimé Césaire, Martinique poet and writer in French
*Zoya Krakhmalnikova, Russian writer and editor
April 18
*Michael de Larrabeiti, English young-adult novelist and travel writer
*William W. Warner, American biologist and Pulitzer Prize writer
May 1 – Elaine Dundy, American novelist, biographer and playwright
May 9 – Nuala O'Faolain, Irish critic and writer
May 11 – Jeff Torrington, Scottish novelist
May 12 – Oakley Hall, American novelist
May 14 – Roy Heath, Guyanese novelist
May 15 – Muhyi al-Din Faris, Sudanese poet
May 19 – Vijay Tendulkar, Indian playwright
May 22 – Robert Asprin, American science fiction writer
May 23 – Alan Brien, English journalist and novelist
May 28 – Elinor Lyon, British children's writer
June 2 – Ferenc Fejtő, Hungarian-born French historian and journalist
June 4 – Matthew Bruccoli, American biographer and scholar
June 5 – Angus Calder, British writer and scholar
June 8 – Peter Rühmkorf, German poet and writer
June 9 – Algis Budrys, American science fiction writer of Lithuanian origin
June 10
*Chinghiz Aitmatov, Kyrgyz writer in Kyrgyz and Russian
*Eliot Asinof, American novelist and baseball writer
June 16 – Mario Rigoni Stern, Italian novelist
June 18 – Tasha Tudor, American children's writer and illustrator
June 22 – Albert Cossery, Egyptian-born French novelist
June 24 – Ruth Cardoso, Brazilian anthropologist and writer
June 25 – Lyall Watson, South African scientist and new age writer
June 27 – Lenka Reinerová, Czech writer in German
July 1
*Clay Felker, American magazine editor and journalist
*Robert Harling, English typographer and novelist
July 2 – Simone Ortega, Spanish cookery writer
July 4
*Thomas M. Disch, American science fiction author and poet.
*Janwillem van de Wetering, Dutch novelist and writer in Dutch and English
July 20 – Roger Wolcott Hall, American memoirist and novelist
July 27 – Bob Crampsey, Scottish writer
July 30 – Peter Coke, English playwright
August 3 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer and Nobel laureate
August 7 – Simon Gray, English playwright and memoirist
August 9 – Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet
August 11 – George Furth, American playwright
August 17 – Dave Freeman, American writer and advertising executive
August 23 – John Russell, English art critic
August 25 – Ahmed Faraz, Pakistani poet in Urdu
August 31 – Ken Campbell, English novelist and playwright
September 5 – Robert Giroux, American editor and publisher
September 7 – Gregory Mcdonald, American mystery writer
September 12 – David Foster Wallace, American novelist
September 17 – James Crumley, American crime writer
September 20 – Duncan Glen, Scottish poet, critic and literary historian
September 23 – William Woodruff, English historian and autobiographer
September 24 – Bengt Anderberg, Swedish poet, novelist and children's writer
September 29 – Hayden Carruth, American poet and literary critic
October 4 – Peter Vansittart, English novelist and historical writer
October 10 – Ilie Purcaru, Romanian journalist and poet
October 14 – Barrington J. Bayley, English science fiction writer
October 26 – Tony Hillerman, American mystery writer
October 27 – Es'kia Mphahlele, South African writer in English
October 29 – William Wharton, American novelist
October 31 – Studs Terkel, American historian and broadcaster
November 4 – Michael Crichton, American writer and scholar
November 13 – Jules Archer, American historian and author
November 14 – Kristin Hunter, American author and academic
December 1 – Dorothy Sterling, American non-fiction writer for children and historian
December 4 – Forrest J Ackerman, American magazine editor, science fiction writer, and literary agent
December 15 – Anne-Catharina Vestly, Norwegian children's book author
December 20 – Adrian Mitchell, English poet, playwright and fiction writer
December 24 – Harold Pinter, English playwright and screenwriter
December 31 – Donald E. Westlake, American novelist

Awards and honors

Australia

Miles Franklin Award: Steven Carroll, ''The Time We Have Taken''

Canada

Canada Reads: Paul Quarrington, King Leary
Dayne Ogilvie Prize: Main award, Zoe Whittall; honours of distinction, Brian Francis, John Miller.
Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Bruce Serafin, Stardust
Governor General's Awards: Multiple categories; see 2008 Governor General's Awards.
Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction: Taras Grescoe, Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood
Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize: Miriam Toews, The Flying Troutmans
Scotiabank Giller Prize: Joseph Boyden, Through Black Spruce
Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award: Michael Winter

Sweden

Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award: Sonya Hartnett

United Kingdom

United States

Lambda Literary Awards: Multiple categories; see 2008 Lambda Literary Awards.
National Book Award for Fiction: to Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen
National Book Critics Circle Award: to 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Laura Amy Schlitz, Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village
PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Kate Christensen, The Great Man
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Junot Diaz, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Whiting Awards:

Other

Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Anselm Kiefer
Premio de la Crítica de Galicia : Xurxo Borrazás, ''Arte e parte''