This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1997.

Events

February 20 – Allen Ginsberg makes a final public appearance at the NYU Poetry Slam.^[1] He continues to write through his final illness, his last poem being "Things I'll Not Do (Nostalgias)" written on March 30.^[2]
May 27 – Shakespeare's Globe in London, a reconstruction of the Elizabethan Globe Theatre, opens with a production of Shakespeare's Henry V.
June 3 – The supposed climax of Max Beerbohm's 1916 short story Enoch Soames occurs at the old British Museum Reading Room in London.
June 26 – J. K. Rowling's first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, is published in London by Bloomsbury Publishing, in an edition of 500 copies.
July 13 – The release occurs in Ireland of the film of Patrick McCabe's 1992 novel The Butcher Boy. The author plays Jimmy The Skite, the town drunk.
September 1 – The Adventures of Captain Underpants, the first in Dav Pilkey's series of children's novels, is published by Scholastic.
October – The online literary magazine Jacket is founded.
November 24 – The new British Library building in London designed by Colin St John Wilson opens to readers.
December 30 – The memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou is removed from the ninth-grade English curriculum in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, for portraying "white people as being horrible, nasty, stupid people".^[3]

Uncertain dates

Tom Clancy signs a deal with Pearson Custom Publishing and Penguin Putnam Inc. giving him US $50 million for the world English rights to two new books. A second agreement pays another $25 million for a four-year book/multimedia deal, and a third, with Berkley Books for 24 paperbacks to tie in with an ABC television miniseries for $22 million.
Janet Dailey admits to plagiarism of the novels of the fellow American bestselling romance writer Nora Roberts.^[4]^[5]

New books

January 19 – James Dickey, American poet and novelist (born 1923)^[14]
February 3 – Bohumil Hrabal, Czech novelist (born 1914)
February 18 – Emily Hahn, American journalist and author (born 1905)
March 21 - Wilbert Awdry, British Anglican reverend and author (born 1911)
April 5 – Allen Ginsberg, American poet (liver cancer, born 1926)^[1]
May 9 – Rina Lasnier, Canadian poet (born 1915)
May 23 – Alison Adburgham, English social historian and journalist (born 1912)
June 8 – George Turner, Australian novelist and critic (born 1916)
June 11 – Susanna Roth, Swiss bohemist and literary translator (born 1950)
July 26 – Joseph Henry Reason, American librarian (born 1905)^[15]
August 2 – William S. Burroughs, American novelist (born 1914^[16]
August 16 – Gerard McLarnon, Irish actor and playwright (born 1915)
August 27 – Johannes Edfelt, Swedish poet, translator and critic (born 1904)
October 14 – Harold Robbins, American novelist (born 1916)
October 16 – James A. Michener, American novelist and historian (born 1907)
November 6 – Leon Forrest, African American novelist and essayist (cancer, born 1937)^[17]
November 30 – Kathy Acker, American novelist and poet (breast cancer, born 1947)^[18]
December 14 – Owen Barfield, British philosopher, author and poet (born 1898)

Nonfiction: Jo Ann Beard, Suketu Mehta (fiction/nonfiction), Ellen Meloy