List of Famous people who died in 1997

Cahit Külebi was a leading Turkish poet and author. He has an important place in contemporary Turkish poetry due to his attachment to folk poetry traditions. His poetry is enriched with simple yet ironic language, embellished with original descriptions.

Percy Howard Newby CBE was an English novelist and broadcasting administrator. He was the first winner of the Booker Prize, his novel Something to Answer For having received the inaugural award in 1969.

William Francis Hare, 5th Earl of Listowel,, styled Viscount Ennismore between 1924 and 1931, was an Anglo-Irish peer and Labour politician. He was the last Secretary of State for India as well as the last Governor-General of Ghana.

Shuhei Nishida was a Japanese Olympic athlete who competed mainly in the pole vault.

Vladimir Yakovlevich Vengerov was a Soviet film director. He directed fourteen films between 1951 and 1985. People's Artist of the RSFSR (1978). His 1962 film A Trip Without a Load was entered into the 3rd Moscow International Film Festival where it won a Silver Prize.

Bengt Emmerik Danielsson was a Swedish anthropologist, writer, and a crew member on the Kon-Tiki raft expedition from South America to French Polynesia in 1947. In 1991, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "exposing the tragic results of and advocating an end to French nuclear colonialism."

Ziya Musa oglu Bunyadov was an Azerbaijani historian, academician, and Vice-President of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan. As a historian, he also headed the Institute of History of the Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences for many years. Bunyadov was a World War II veteran and Hero of the Soviet Union.

Mariko Umeda , better known by her ring name Plum Mariko was a Japanese female professional wrestler who wrestled for Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling from 1986 to 1992 and then, JWP Joshi Puroresu from 1992 until her death in 1997. Mariko was the first professional wrestler in Japan to die as a result of injuries suffered in a wrestling match.