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The year 2003 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• September 9 - Barnes & Noble, the largest American bookseller, announces that it will no longer sell downloadable electronic texts sometimes called ebooks.

New books

• Peter Ackroyd - The Clerkenwell Tales
• Mitch Albom - The Five People You Meet in Heaven
• Martin Amis - Yellow Dog
• Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake
• Max Barry - Jennifer Government
• Greg Bear - Darwin's Children
• Thomas Berger - Best Friends
• Giles Blunt - The Delicate Storm
• Dan Brown - The Da Vinci Code
• Lars Saabye Christensen - Maskeblomstfamilien
• Paolo Coelho - Eleven Minutes
• J. M. Coetzee - Elizabeth Costello
• Deborah Joy Corey - The Skating Pond
• Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe's Havoc, Sharpe's Christmas and Heretic
• Douglas Coupland - Hey Nostradamus!
• Robert Crais - The Last Detective
• Julie E. Czerneda - Space, Inc.
• Jeffery Deaver - Twisted
• Don DeLillo - Cosmopolis
• Cory Doctorow - A Place So Foreign and Eight More and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
• Gerard Donovan - Schopenhauer's Telescope
• Fernanda Eberstadt - The Furies
• William Gibson -Pattern Recognition
• Jean-Christophe Grangé - L'Empire des loups
• John Grisham - The King of Torts
• Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: A Novel
• Joanne Harris - Holy Fools
• Victor Heck
  • The Asylum Vol 2 - The Violent Ward
  • The Asylum Vol 3 - The Quiet Ward
• Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner
• Jennifer Haigh - Mrs. Kimble
• Zoë Heller - Notes on a Scandal
• Michel Houellebecq - Lanzarote
• Pope John Paul II Roman Triptych. Meditations
• Greg Keyes - The Final Prophecy
• Stephen King - Wolves of the Calla
• Dean R. Koontz - The Face
• Jonathan Lethem - The Fortress of Solitude
• James Luceno - The Unifying Force
• Steve Martini - The Arraignment
• Magnus Mills - The Scheme for Full Employment
• Julie Myerson - Something Might Happen
• Andrew Neiderman - The Baby Squad
• Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Traveler's Wife
• Garth Nix - Mister Monday
• Chuck Palahniuk - Diary
• Christopher Paolini - Eragon
• Carolyn Parkhurst - The Dogs of Babel
• DBC Pierre - Vernon God Little
• Terry Pratchett - Monstrous Regiment and The Wee Free Men
• Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow
• Joel C. Rosenberg - The Last Jihad: A Novel
• J. K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Nick Sagan - Idlewild
• Matthew Sharpe - The Sleeping Father
• Michael Slade - Bed of Nails
• Lemony Snicket - The Slippery Slope
• Wilbur Smith - Blue Horizon
• Olen Steinhauer - The Bridge of Sighs
• Neal Stephenson - Quicksilver (Vol. I of the Baroque Cycle)
• Matthew Stover - Shatterpoint
• Anthony Swofford - Jarhead
• Miguel Sousa Tavares - Ecuador
• Adam Thirlwell - Politics
• Akira Toriyama - Tenshi no Tocchio
• Sergio Troncoso - The Nature of Truth
• Andrew Vachss - The Getaway Man
• Irvine Welsh - Porno
• Sean Williams & Shane Dix - Force Heretic: Remnant, Force Heretic: Refugee and Force Heretic: Reunion
• Tobias Wolff - Old School
• Roger Zelazny - Manna from Heaven

New drama

• Richard Greenberg - The Violet Hour
• Kwame Kwei-Armah - Elmina's Kitchen

Poetry

• Dean Kalimniou - Kipos Esokleistos

Non-fiction

• Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh
• Gerina Dunwich – Dunwich's Guide to Gemstone Sorcery
• Marc Ferro - Le livre noir du colonialisme
• John Fowles – The Journals - Volume 1
• James Frost – Merchant Princes, Halifax's First Family of Finance, Ships and Steel
• Mattias Gardell - Gods in the Blood
• Will Hutton - The World we're in
• Erik Larson – The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
• Don Miller – Blue Like Jazz
• Michael Moore – Dude, Where's My Country?
• Azar Nafisi - Reading Lolita in Tehran
• Alanna Nash – The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley
• Chuck Palahniuk – Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon
• Clark Ashton Smith – Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith
• David Starkey – Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII
• Lynne Truss – Eats, Shoots & Leaves
• Jane Smiley – Charles Dickens

Births

Deaths

• February 16 - Aleksandar Tišma, Serb novelist
• February 26 - Quentin Keynes, bibliophile
• March 11 - Brian Cleeve, writer and broadcaster
• September 3 - Alan Dugan, poet
• March 12 - Howard Fast, American novelist
• April 7 - Cecile de Brunhoff, children's author
• June 21 - George Axelrod, dramatist and screenwriter
• July 10 - Winston Graham, novelist
• July 16 - Carol Shields, novelist
• November 9 - Binod Bihari Verma, Maithili littérateur
• December 2 - Alan Davidson, food writer

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: J. M. Coetzee

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Nicholas Angel, Drown Them in the Sea
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Emma Lew, Anything the Landlord Touches
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Jill Jones, Screens Jets Heaven
• Miles Franklin Award: Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country

Canada

• Giller Prize: M.G. Vassanji - The In-Between World of Vikram Lall
• See 2003 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of the winners of those awards.
• Griffin Poetry Prize: Margaret Avison, Concrete and Wild Carrot and Paul Muldoon, Moy sand and gravel

United Kingdom

• Cholmondeley Award: Ciaran Carson, Michael Donaghy, Lavinia Greenlaw, Jackie Kay
• Eric Gregory Award: Jen Hadfield, Zoe Brigley, Paul Batchelor, Olivia Cole, Sasha Dugdale, Anna Woodford
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: Volume 2 - The Power of Place
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Andrew O'Hagan, Personality
• Man Booker Prize: D.B.C. Pierre, Vernon God Little
• Orange Prize for Fiction: Valerie Martin, Property
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: U. A. Fanthorpe
• Whitbread Book of The Year Award: Mark Haddon for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: A Novel

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize awarded to David Shumate for High Water Mark
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Poetry, W.S. Merwin
• Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry, Julie Sheehan for “Brown-headed Cow Birds”
• Bollingen Prize for Poetry, Adrienne Rich
• Brittingham Prize in Poetry, Brian Teare, The Room Where I Was Born
• Compton Crook Award: Patricia Bray, Devlin's Luck
• Frost Medal: Lawrence Ferlinghetti
• Hugo Award: Robert J. Sawyer, Hominids
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Avi, Crispin: The Cross of Lead
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex
• Wallace Stevens Award: Richard Wilbur

Elsewhere

• International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award: Orhan Pamuk My Name is Red
• Premio Nadal: Andrés Trapiello, Los amigos del crimen perfecto