As 2023 draws to a close, we pause to remember the authors, illustrators, and other literary figures we’ve lost over the past 12 months. Here are just a few:

Russell Banks died on Jan. 8 at age 82. Known for novels featuring blue-collar characters facing loss, Banks was a Pulitzer Prize finalist twice, for Continental Drift (1985) and Cloudsplitter (1998); his 1991 novel, The Sweet Hereafter, was made into a film.

Kenzaburō Ōe died on March 3 at age 88. The Japanese author was known for such novels as A Personal Matter (1964), a reckoning with the birth of his disabled son; A Quiet Life (1990); and The Changeling (2000). He received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1994.

Ian Falconer died on March 7 at age 63. The author and artist was best known for Olivia (2000), a bestselling children’s picture book about a smart and multitalented piglet; the book received a Caldecott Honor and spawned an entire series.

Anne Perry died on April 10 at age 84. The prolific crime novelist, author of The Cater Street Hangman (1979) and A Dangerous Mourning (1991), was convicted of murder as a teenager in New Zealand; the case was the subject of the film Heavenly Creatures.

Martin Amis died on May 19 at age 73. The son of acclaimed British novelist Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis won recognition in his own right with such novels as Money (1984), London Fields (1989), and, most recently, the autobiographical Inside Story (2020).

Ama Ata Aidoo died on May 31 at age 81. The Ghanaian novelist and playwright was known for works that explored the lives of women in her home country, including No Sweetness Here (1970), Our Sister Killjoy (1966), and Changes (1991).

Cormac McCarthy died on June 13 at age 89. The award-winning McCarthy was widely considered one of the great American fiction stylists of his generation, a reputation built on such novels as All the Pretty Horses (1992), No Country for Old Men (2005), and The Road (2006).

Milan Kundera died on July 12 at age 94. The Czechoslovakia-born writer, who was involved with the anti-Soviet reform movement of the Prague Spring, is best known for his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), adapted for an Oscar-nominated film.

Ed Young died on Sept. 29 at age 91. The children’s book author and illustrator was born in China and came to the U.S. as a young man; he’s remembered for a host of books, including Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story From China, which won a Caldecott Medal in 1990.

Khaled Khalifa died on Sept. 30 at age 59. The Syrian author, whose works had been banned in his home country, was known for novels such as Death Is Hard Work, a finalist for the National Book Award in translated literature in 2019.

Louise Glück died on Oct. 13 at age 80. The award-winning poet, known for collections such as The Wild Iris (1992) and Faithful and Virtuous Night (2014), was the most recent American writer to receive the Nobel Prize in literature, in 2020.

A.S. Byatt died on Nov. 16 at age 87. The English novelist and sister of author Margaret Drabble won the Booker Prize for her 1990 novel, Possession.

Tom Beer is the editor-in-chief.

PHOTO CREDITS. Top row, from left: Ama Ata Aidoo (photo by Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images); Ed Young (Triangle Square Books for Young Readers); Anne Perry (David Levenson/Getty Images); Khaled Khalifa (Roberto Ricciuti/Getty Images). Center row, from left: Cormac McCarthy (Beowulf Sheehan); Milan Kundera (AFP via Getty Images); Kenzaburo Ōe (Jeff Pachoud via Getty Images); Louise Glück (Robin Marchant/Getty Images). Bottom row, from left: A.S.Byatt (Marco Secchi/Corbis via Getty Images); Ian Falconer (Tonia Barringer); Russell Banks (Ulf Andersen/Getty Images); Martin Amis (Leonardo Cendamo/Getty Images).