2017 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2017. Events March – Emulating Kerouac's On the Road, Ross Goodwin drives from New York to New Orleans with an artificial intelligence device in a laptop hooked up to various sensors, whose output it turns into words printed on rolls of thermal paper; the result is published unedited as 1 the Road in 2018. August – The Chinese crime novelist Liu Yongbiao is arrested and eventually sentenced to death for four murders committed 22 years before. August 30 – A hard disk drive containing unfinished work by the English comic fantasy novelist Sir Terry Pratchett (died 2015) is crushed by a steamroller on his instructions. October 5 - The Swedish Academy announce that the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to Kazuo Ishiguro. October – Tianjin Binhai Library opens in China. December – Kristen Roupenian's short story "Cat Person" is published in The New Yorker and becomes a viral phenomenon online, with more than 2.6 million hits. Anniversaries Tercentenary of the Aberbaijani poet Molla Panah Vagif's birth in 1717 600th anniversary of the death of the Turkic mystical poet Imadaddin Nasimi in 1417 March 19 – Bicentenary of the Slovak writer Jozef Miloslav Hurban's birth May 8 – The American novelist Thomas Pynchon turns 80. June 18 – Centenary of the death of the Romanian literary critic and former prime minister Titu Maiorescu June 26 – 20th anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (U.K. edition) July 12 – 200th birthday of Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden July 14 – Bicentenary of the early French salonnière Madame de Staël's death July 18 – Bicentenary of the novelist Jane Austen's death in 1817 Nov 30 – 350th anniversary of the Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift's birth in 1667 December 4 – Bicentenary of the birth of Nikoloz Baratashvili's in 1817, who introduced European style into Georgian literature. New books Dates after each title indicate U.S. publication, unless otherwise indicated. Fiction Ayobami Adebayo – Stay With Me (March 2, UK) Paul Auster – 4 3 2 1 (January 31) Brunonia Barry – The Fifth Petal: a novel Darcey Bell – A Simple Favor (March 1) Dan Brown – Origin (October 3) Peter Carey – A Long Way From Home (October 30, Australia) J. M. Coetzee – The Schooldays of Jesus (February 21) Claire G. Coleman – Terra Nullius Curtis Dawkins – The Graybar Hotel (July 4) Didier Decoin – Le bureau des jardins et des étangs (The Office of Gardens and Ponds) (France) Steve Erickson – Shadowbahn Christine Féret-Fleury – La fille qui lisait dans le Métro (The Girl who Read on the Metro) (March 9, France) Karl Geary – Montpelier Parade (August 31) John Grisham – Camino Island (June 6) Mohsin Hamid – Exit West (March 2, UK) Catherine Hernandez - Scarborough Alan Hollinghurst – The Sparsholt Affair (September 26, UK) Gail Honeyman – Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (UK) N. K. Jemisin – The