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The year 1993 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• Professor Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, becomes the longest running book on the bestseller list of The Sunday Times.
• November 17 - Annie Proulx wins the National Book Award for her novel The Shipping News.
• Year 1993 is the 30th anniversary of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan.

New books

• Stephen Ambrose - Band of Brothers
• Martin Amis - Visiting Mrs Nabokov: And Other Excursions
• Jeffrey Archer - Honour Among Thieves
• David Banks - Iceberg
• Iain Banks - Complicity
• Pat Barker - The Eye in the Door
• Greg Bear - Moving Mars
• Daniel Blythe - The Dimension Riders
• Sandra Boynton - Barnyard Dance!
• Christopher Bulis - Shadowmind
• Ramsey Campbell - Alone with the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell 1961-1991
• Tom Clancy - Without Remorse
• Deborah Joy Corey - Losing Eddie
• Bernard Cornwell - Rebel
• Peter Darvill-Evans - Deceit
• Hollace Davids and Paul Davids - Mission from Mount Yoda
• Lindsey Davis - Poseidon's Gold
• L. Sprague de Camp - Rivers of Time
• Stephen R. Donaldson - The Gap into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises
• Laura Esquivel - Like Water for Chocolate
• Richard Paul Evans - The Christmas Box
• Amanda Filipacchi - Nude Men
• John Gardner - Never Send Flowers
• Ernest Gaines - A Lesson Before Dying
• John Grisham - The Client
• Stephen King - Nightmares and Dreamscapes
• Nancy Kress - The Aliens of Earth
• John le Carré - The Night Manager
• Lois Lowry - The Giver
• Robert Ludlum - The Scorpio Illusion
• Amin Maalouf - Le Rocher de Tanios
• David A. McIntee - White Darkness
• Jim Mortimore (and Andy Lane) - Lucifer Rising
  • Blood Heat
• Patrick O'Brian - Clarissa Oakes
• Kate Orman - The Left-Handed Hummingbird
• Neil Penswick - The Pit
• Terry Pratchett - Men at Arms
• Anne Rice - Lasher
• Gareth Roberts - The Highest Science
• Nigel Robinson - Birthright
• W.G. Sebald - The Emigrants
• Ahdaf Soueif - In the Eye of the Sun
• Danielle Steel - Vanished
• Sue Townsend - Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years
• Scott Turow - Pleading Guilty
• Kathy Tyers - The Truce at Bakura
• Andrew Vachss - Shella
• Robert James Waller - Slow Waltz at Cedar Bend
• Irvine Welsh - Trainspotting
• Herman Wouk - The Hope
• Timothy Zahn - The Last Command
• Roger Zelazny - A Night in the Lonesome October

New drama

• Tom Stoppard - Arcadia

Poetry

• Leonard Cohen - Stranger Music
• Paul Durcan - A Snail in My Prime. New and Selected Poems

Non-fiction

• Bija Bennett - Breathing into Life: Recovering Wholeness Through Body, Mind, and Breath
• Richard Dawkins - Viruses of the Mind
• Shobha De and Khushwant Singh - Uncertain Liaisons
• Esther Delisle - The Traitor and the Jew: Anti-Semitism and the Delirium of Extremist Right-Wing Nationalism in French Canada from 1929-1939 (Antisémitisme et nationalisme d'extrême-droite dans la province de Québec 1929-1939)
• Tamala Krishna Goswami - Aditi commentary Happiness is a Science – Aditi’s Vow
• Steven Pressman - Outrageous Betrayal: The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from est to Exile
• Miranda Seymour - Ottoline Morrell: Life on the Grand Scale
• Walter Stewart - Too Big to Fail

Deaths

• January 8 - Eleanor Hibbert, better known as Jean Plaidy and Victoria Holt
• January 22 - Kōbō Abe, novelist and playwright
• March 9 - C. Northcote Parkinson, historian, codifier of Parkinson's Law
• April 15 - Leslie Charteris, creator of "The Saint"
• April 23 - Bertus Aafjes, Dutch poet
• June 19 - William Golding, novelist and poet
• August 28 - E. P. Thompson, political historian
• September 7 - Eugen Barbu, novelist, playwright and journalist
• September 16 - Oodgeroo Noonuccal, poet
• November 25 - Anthony Burgess, novelist
• December 4 - Margaret Landon, author of Anna and the King of Siam
• December 28 - William L. Shirer, historian

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Toni Morrison

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Helen Demidenko, The Hand That Signed The Paper
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Les Murray, Translations from the Natural World
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Les Murray, Translations from the Natural World
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Jill Jones - The Mask and Jagged Star

Canada

• See 1993 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Amin Maalouf, Le Rocher de Tanios
• Prix Décembre: René de Obaldia. Exobiographie
• Prix Médicis French: Emmanuèle Bernheim, Sa femme
• Prix Médicis International: Paul Auster, Leviathan

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Caryl Phillips, Crossing the River
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Richard Holmes , Dr Johnson and Mr Savage
• Cholmondeley Award: Patricia Beer, George Mackay Brown, P. J. Kavanagh, Michael Longley
• Whitbread Book Award: Joan Brady, Theory of War
• The Sunday Express Book of the Year: William Boyd, The Blue Afternoon

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Natasha Saj, Red Under the Skin
• Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: George Starbuck
• American Academy of Arts and Letters gold Medal for Belles Lettres, Elizabeth Hardwick
• Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Stephen Yenser, "Blue Guide"
• Compton Crook Award: Holly Lisle, Fire in the Mist
• Frost Medal: William Stafford
• Nebula Award: Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Cynthia Rylant, Missing May
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Tony Kushner, Angels in America: Millennium Approaches
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Robert Olen Butler, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Louise Gluck, The Wild Iris

Elsewhere

• Premio Nadal: Rafael Argullol Murgadas, La razón del mal