1979 in literature

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Last updated June 30, 2025

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1979.

Events

May – The Merchant Ivory Productions film The Europeans is released. Its screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala draws on the 1878 Henry James novel of the same name.^[1]
October 25 – The London Review of Books is first issued, its founding editors being Karl Miller, Mary-Kay Wilmers and Susannah Clapp. For its first six months it appears as an insert to The New York Review of Books .^[2]
November – Dambudzo Marechera's The House of Hunger wins the Guardian Fiction Prize.^[3]
unknown dates
- K. W. Jeter's novel Morlock Night pioneers full-length fiction in the genre he later calls steampunk.^[4]
- August Wilson's Jitney is first produced; it becomes the eighth in his "Pittsburgh Cycle".^[5]

New books

Poetry

Kingsley Amis – Collected Poems

Non-fiction

Alison Adburgham – Shopping in Style: London from the Restoration to Edwardian Elegance
David Attenborough – Life on Earth
Harold Walter Bailey – Dictionary of Khotan Saka
Ion Biberi – Lumea de azi (World of Today)
Jerome Bruner – On Knowing: Essays for the Left Hand
L. Sprague de Camp (editor) – The Blade of Conan
Joan Didion – The White Album
Elizabeth Eisenstein – The Printing Press as an Agent of Change
Peter Evans – The Music of Benjamin Britten
John Fowles – The Tree
Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar – The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination
Eloise Greenfield, Lessie Jones Little, Pattie Ridley Jones – Childtimes: A Three-Generation Memoir
Douglas Hofstadter – Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Henry Kissinger – The White House Years
Leon Litwack – Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery
Jean-François Lyotard – The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (La Condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir)
Jessica Mitford – Poison Penmanship: the Gentle Art of Muckraking
Stephen Pile – The Book of Heroic Failures
Clark Ashton Smith – The Black Book of Clark Ashton Smith
Margaret Trudeau – Beyond Reason
Tom Wolfe – The Right Stuff

Births

February 4 – Ben Lerner, American poet, novelist and critic
February 10 – Johan Harstad, Norwegian novelist^[7]
February 27 - Alexander Gordon Smith, British children's and young-adult author
March 28 – Benjamin Percy, American short story writer
April 14 – Patrick Somerville, American novelist and short story writer
May 21 - James Clancy Phelan, American young-adult and thriller writer
June 28 – Florian Zeller, French novelist and dramatist
July 14 – Yukiko Motoya, Japanese fiction writer, playwright, theatre director and voice actress
unknown dates
- D.D. Johnston, Scottish political novelist and university lecturer
- Emily St. John Mandel, Canadian-born novelist^[8]

Deaths

January – Dilys Cadwaladr, Welsh-language poet (born 1902)
January 27 – Victoria Ocampo, Argentine publisher, writer and critic (born 1890)^[9]
February 9 – Allen Tate, American poet and essayist (born 1899)^[10]
February 25 – John L. Wasserman, American entertainment critic (car accident, born 1938)^[11]
February 27 – Sir George Clark, English historian (born 1890)
March 26 – Jean Stafford, American short story writer and novelist (heart failure; born 1915)^[12]
April 8 – Breece D'J Pancake, American short story writer (suicide, born 1952)
May 10 – J. B. Morton (Beachcomber), English humorous newspaper columnist (born 1893)
May 14 – Jean Rhys, Dominica-born English novelist (born 1890)^[13]
June 1 – Eric Partridge, New Zealand/British lexicographer (born 1894)^[14]
June 3 – Arno Schmidt, German novelist (born 1914)^[15]
June 7 – Forrest Carter, American genre novelist (heart failure, born 1925)
July 6 – Malcolm Hulke, English television writer (born 1924)
July 7 – Ahmad Qandil, Saudi Arabian poet (born 1911) ^[16]
July 15 – Juana de Ibarbourou, Uruguayan poet (born 1892)
July 21 – Eugène Vinaver, Russian-born English literary scholar (born 1899)
July 23 – Joseph Kessel, French journalist and novelist (born 1898)^[17]
July 24 - Edward Stachura, Polish writer (born 1937)
July 29 – Herbert Marcuse, German Jewish philosopher (born 1898)^[18]
August 8 – Nicholas Monsarrat, English novelist (born 1910)
August 16 – Jerzy Jurandot (Jerzy Glejgewicht), Polish poet and dramatist (born 1911)
August 20 – Christian Dotremont, Belgian painter and writer (born 1922)^[19]
August 22 – James T. Farrell, American novelist (born 1904)^[20]
September 5 – John Bradburne, English poet and missionary (killed by guerillas; born 1921)
September 6 – Guy Bolton, British playwright (born 1884)^[21]
September 25 – Zhou Libo (周立波), Chinese novelist and translator (born 1908)
October 6 – Elizabeth Bishop, American poet (born 1911)
October 17 – S. J. Perelman, American humorist (born 1904)^[22]
October 18 – Virgilio Piñera, Cuban poet and short-story writer (born 1912)
December 12 – Goronwy Rees, Welsh journalist and academic (born 1909)^[23]
December 19 – Donald Creighton, Canadian historian (born 1902)

Awards

Nobel Prize for Literature: Odysseus Elytis

Canada

See 1979 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

Prix Goncourt: Antonine Maillet, Pélagie-la-Charrette^[24]
Prix Médicis French: Claude Durand, La Nuit zoologique^[25]
Prix Médicis International: Alejo Carpentier, La harpe et l'ombre^[26]

Spain

Miguel de Cervantes Prize: Jorge Luis Borges and Gerardo Diego

United Kingdom

Booker Prize: Penelope Fitzgerald, Offshore
Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Peter Dickinson, Tulku
Cholmondeley Award:
Guardian Fiction Prize: Neil Jordan, Night in Tunisia and Dambudzo Marechera, The House of Hunger
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: William Golding, Darkness Visible
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Brian Finney, Christopher Isherwood: A Critical Biography

United States

Elsewhere

Miles Franklin Award: David Ireland, A Woman of the Future
Premio Nadal: Carlos Rojas, El ingenioso hidalgo y poeta Federico García Lorca asciende a los infiernos
Viareggio Prize: Giorgio Manganelli, Centuria

References

↑ Jessica Bomarito; Jelena Krstovic (July 2006). Short Story Criticism: Criticism of the Works of Short Fiction Writers. Cengage Gale. p. 249. ISBN 978-0-7876-8888-2.
↑ Grimes, William (2011-06-20). "A. Whitney Ellsworth, First Publisher of New York Review, Dies at 75". The New York Times . Retrieved 2011-06-20.
↑ Flora Veit-Wild (1992). Dambudzo Marechera: A Source Book on His Life and Work. Hans Zell. p. 188. ISBN 978-0-905450-97-1.
↑ Dana Percec (26 June 2014). Reading the Fantastic Imagination: The Avatars of a Literary Genre. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 221. ISBN 978-1-4438-6297-4.
↑ James Fisher (1 June 2011). Historical Dictionary of Contemporary American Theater: 1930-2010. Scarecrow Press. p. 402. ISBN 978-0-8108-7950-8.
↑ Stoppard plays at http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsS/stoppard-tom.html#33484 Archived 2012-11-28 at the Wayback Machine
↑ Brageprisen nominations 2010.
↑ "Mandel, Emily St. John 1979– --" in Contemporary Authors, v. 301. Gale, 2010.
↑ Goodwin Jr., Paul B. "Ocampo, Victoria (1890–1979)". Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia– via Encyclopedia.com.
↑ "Allen Tate, Poet, critic and Teacher, Dead". The New York Times. February 10, 1979. Retrieved October 25, 2022.
↑ John Wasserman (1993). Praise, Vilification, & Sexual Innuendo, Or, How to be a Critic: The Selected Writings of John L. Wasserman (1964-1979). Chronicle Books. p. 1. ISBN 9780811802475.
↑ Stacy Lorraine Braukman; Susan Ware (2004). Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary Completing the Twentieth Century. Belknap Press. p. 609.
↑ Mitgang, Herbert (17 May 1979). "Jean Rhys, 84, Novelist Known for 'sargasso Sea'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 24 April 2020.
↑ Meanjin, volume 38. University of Melbourne. 1979. p. 516.
↑ Review of Contemporary Fiction. John O'Brien. 1988. p. 142.
↑ "السيرة الذاتية". alithnainya (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 7 August 2022. Retrieved 7 August 2022.
↑ "Obituaries". Cross & Cockade Journal. 20. the Society: 380. 1979.
↑ Kenneth A. Briggs (July 31, 1979). "Marcuse, Radical Philosopher, Dies". New York Times. Retrieved March 26, 2022.
↑ State, Paul (2004). Historical Dictionary of Brussels. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Pub. Group. p. 225. ISBN 9780810865556.
↑ Wald, Alan (1987). The New York intellectuals : the rise and decline of the anti-Stalinist left from the 1930s to the 1980s. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. p. 259. ISBN 9780807841693.
↑ "Mr Guy Bolton", obituary, The Times, 23 November 1979, p. 11
↑ "S. J. Perelman, Humorist, Is Dead - The New York Times". New York Times. October 18, 1979. Retrieved October 25, 2022.
↑ "Goronwy Rees (1909-1979)". From Warfare to Welfare (MYGLYW). Archived from the original on 21 February 2015. Retrieved 20 February 2015.
↑ Anthony Pym; Miriam Shlesinger; Daniel Simeoni (2008). Beyond Descriptive Translation Studies: Investigations in Homage to Gideon Toury. John Benjamins Publishing. p. 181. ISBN 978-90-272-1684-7.
↑ Francois Chaubet (26 January 2018). Claude Durand, biographie. Editions du Cerf. p. 132. ISBN 978-2-204-12473-7.
↑ Jeune Afrique. Société africaine de presse. 1980. p. 75.

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[1] Jessica Bomarito; Jelena Krstovic (July 2006). Short Story Criticism: Criticism of the Works of Short Fiction Writers. Cengage Gale. p. 249. ISBN 978-0-7876-8888-2.

[2] Grimes, William (2011-06-20). "A. Whitney Ellsworth, First Publisher of New York Review, Dies at 75". The New York Times . Retrieved 2011-06-20.

[Veit-Wild1992-3] Flora Veit-Wild (1992). Dambudzo Marechera: A Source Book on His Life and Work. Hans Zell. p. 188. ISBN 978-0-905450-97-1.

[4] Dana Percec (26 June 2014). Reading the Fantastic Imagination: The Avatars of a Literary Genre. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 221. ISBN 978-1-4438-6297-4.

[5] James Fisher (1 June 2011). Historical Dictionary of Contemporary American Theater: 1930-2010. Scarecrow Press. p. 402. ISBN 978-0-8108-7950-8.

[6] Stoppard plays at http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsS/stoppard-tom.html#33484 Archived 2012-11-28 at the Wayback Machine

[7] Brageprisen nominations 2010.

[8] "Mandel, Emily St. John 1979– --" in Contemporary Authors, v. 301. Gale, 2010.

[9] Goodwin Jr., Paul B. "Ocampo, Victoria (1890–1979)". Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia– via Encyclopedia.com.

[10] "Allen Tate, Poet, critic and Teacher, Dead". The New York Times. February 10, 1979. Retrieved October 25, 2022.

[11] John Wasserman (1993). Praise, Vilification, & Sexual Innuendo, Or, How to be a Critic: The Selected Writings of John L. Wasserman (1964-1979). Chronicle Books. p. 1. ISBN 9780811802475.

[12] Stacy Lorraine Braukman; Susan Ware (2004). Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary Completing the Twentieth Century. Belknap Press. p. 609.

[13] Mitgang, Herbert (17 May 1979). "Jean Rhys, 84, Novelist Known for 'sargasso Sea'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 24 April 2020.

[14] Meanjin, volume 38. University of Melbourne. 1979. p. 516.

[15] Review of Contemporary Fiction. John O'Brien. 1988. p. 142.

[16] "السيرة الذاتية". alithnainya (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 7 August 2022. Retrieved 7 August 2022.

[17] "Obituaries". Cross & Cockade Journal. 20. the Society: 380. 1979.

[18] Kenneth A. Briggs (July 31, 1979). "Marcuse, Radical Philosopher, Dies". New York Times. Retrieved March 26, 2022.

[19] State, Paul (2004). Historical Dictionary of Brussels. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Pub. Group. p. 225. ISBN 9780810865556.

[20] Wald, Alan (1987). The New York intellectuals : the rise and decline of the anti-Stalinist left from the 1930s to the 1980s. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. p. 259. ISBN 9780807841693.

[21] "Mr Guy Bolton", obituary, The Times, 23 November 1979, p. 11

[22] "S. J. Perelman, Humorist, Is Dead - The New York Times". New York Times. October 18, 1979. Retrieved October 25, 2022.

[myglyw-23] "Goronwy Rees (1909-1979)". From Warfare to Welfare (MYGLYW). Archived from the original on 21 February 2015. Retrieved 20 February 2015.

[24] Anthony Pym; Miriam Shlesinger; Daniel Simeoni (2008). Beyond Descriptive Translation Studies: Investigations in Homage to Gideon Toury. John Benjamins Publishing. p. 181. ISBN 978-90-272-1684-7.

[25] Francois Chaubet (26 January 2018). Claude Durand, biographie. Editions du Cerf. p. 132. ISBN 978-2-204-12473-7.

[26] Jeune Afrique. Société africaine de presse. 1980. p. 75.

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