1981 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1981.

Events

• May 31 – The burning of Jaffna Public Library in Sri Lanka is begun by a mob of police and government-sponsored paramilitaries. They destroy over 97,000 volumes in one of the worst examples of ethnic book burning in the modern era. ^[1]
• August – Sefer ve Sefel opens as an English used bookstore in Jerusalem.
• unknown dates
  • John Gardner successfully revives the James Bond novel series originated by Ian Fleming with Licence Renewed (not counting a faux biography of Bond and a pair of film novelizations, the first original Bond novel since 1968's Colonel Sun ). The revived Bond book series will run uninterrupted until 2002.
  • Colin MacCabe is denied tenure at the University of Cambridge, apparently because of a dispute within the English Faculty about the teaching of structuralism. ^[2]
  • The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is given for the first time. ^[3]

New books

Fiction

• Eric Ambler – The Care of Time
• Kingsley Amis (ed.) – The Golden Age of Science Fiction
• Martin Amis – Other People
• V. C. Andrews – If There Be Thorns
• Louis Auchincloss – The Cat and the King
• René Barjavel – Une rose au paradis ^[4]
• Samuel Beckett – Ill Seen Ill Said
• Thomas Berger – Reinhart's Women
• Pierre Berton – Flames Across the Border
• William Boyd – A Good Man in Africa
• Pascal Bruckner – Evil Angels
• William S. Burroughs – Cities of the Red Night
• Robert Olen Butler – The Alleys of Eden
• Peter Carey – Bliss
• Raymond Carver – What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
• David Case – The Third Grave
• James Clavell – Noble House
• Bernard Cornwell
  • Sharpe's Eagle
  • Sharpe's Gold
• John Crowley – Little, Big
• L. Sprague de Camp – The Hand of Zei
• L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp – Footprints on Sand
• Régine Deforges – La Bicyclette bleue (The Blue Bicycle) ^[5]
• Samuel R. Delany – Distant Star
• Michel Déon – Where Are You Dying Tonight? (Un déjeuner de soleil) ^[6]
• Cynthia Freeman – No Time for Tears
• Gabriel García Márquez – Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Crónica de una muerte anunciada) ^[7]
• John Gardner – Licence Renewed
• Charles L. Grant – Tales from the Nightside
• Alasdair Gray – Lanark ^[8]
• Jan Guillou – Ondskan ^[9]
• Thomas Harris – Red Dragon
• Frank Herbert – God Emperor of Dune
• Douglas Hill – Planet of the Warlord
• Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp – The Flame Knife
• John Irving – The Hotel New Hampshire
• Rona Jaffe – Mazes and Monsters
• Alan Judd – A Breed of Heroes
• Ismail Kadare – The File on H (Dosja J)
• Stephen King – Cujo
• Dean Koontz (as Leigh Nichols) – The Eyes of Darkness
• Chart Korbjitti – Khamphiphaksa (The Judgment)
• Joe R. Lansdale – Act of Love
• Stanisław Lem – Golem XIV
• Colleen McCullough – An Indecent Obsession
• Elliot S! Maggin – Miracle Monday
• Naguib Mahfouz – Arabian Nights and Days (ليالي ألف ليلة)
• Ian McEwan – The Comfort of Strangers
• Toni Morrison – Tar Baby
• Robert B. Parker
  • A Savage Place
  • Early Autumn
• Ellis Peters
  • Saint Peter's Fair
  • The Leper of Saint Giles
• Terry Pratchett – Strata
• Bano Qudsia – Raja Gidh ("King Vulture")
• Alain Robbe-Grillet – Djinn
• Harold Robbins – Goodbye, Janette
• Salman Rushdie – Midnight's Children
• Lawrence Sanders – The Third Deadly Sin
• Martin Cruz Smith – Gorky Park
• Muriel Spark – Loitering with Intent
• Botho Strauß – Couples, Passersby (Paare, Passanten) (stories) ^[10]
• Paul Theroux – The Mosquito Coast
• D. M. Thomas – The White Hotel
• John Updike – Rabbit Is Rich
• Jack Vance – The Book of Dreams
• Gore Vidal – Creation
• Joseph Wambaugh – The Glitter Dome
• Kit Williams – Masquerade
• Gene Wolfe
  • The Claw of the Conciliator
  • The Sword of the Lictor
• Roger Zelazny
  • The Changing Land
  • Madwand

Children and young people

• Chris Van Allsburg – Jumanji ^[11]
• Hans Christian Andersen (with Jane S. Woodward and Michael Hague) – Michael Hague's Favourite Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales
• Judy Blume – Tiger Eyes ^[12]
• Beverly Cleary – Ramona Quimby, Age 8 ^[13]
• Eth Clifford – The Dastardly Murder of Dirty Pete ^[13]
• Roald Dahl – George's Marvellous Medicine ^[14]
• Rumer Godden – The Dragon of Og ^[13]
• Roger Hargreaves – Little Miss (first 13 books in the Little Miss series of 21)
• Florence Parry Heide – Treehorn's Treasure ^[13]
• Harold Lamb (with George Barr and Alicia Austin) – Durandal
• Michael de Larrabeiti – The Borribles Go for Broke
• Janet Lunn – The Root Cellar
• Patricia Lynch – The Turf-Cutter's Donkey
• Michelle Magorian – Goodnight Mister Tom ^[15]
• C. L. Moore (with Alicia Austin) - Scarlet Dream
• Uri Orlev – The Island on Bird Street (האי ברחוב הציפורים)
• Ruth Park – The Muddle-Headed Wombat is Very Bad
• Bill Peet – Encore for Eleanor
• Alvin Schwartz – Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
• Maurice Sendak – Outside Over There ^[16]
• Jan Wahl – The Cucumber Princess ^[17]
• Robert Westall – The Scarecrows ^[18]

Drama

• Samuel Beckett – Rockaby ^[19]
• Edward Bond – Restoration
• Tankred Dorst – Merlin oder das wüste Land
• John Krizanc – Tamara
• Larry Shue – The Nerd
• Barney Simon – Woza Albert!
• Botho Strauß – Kalldewey, Farce
• Patrick Süskind – Der Kontrabaß
• Peter Whelan – The Accrington Pals
• Tennessee Williams – The Notebook of Trigorin

Poetry

Main article: 1981 in poetry

• L. Sprague de Camp – Heroes and Hobgoblins
• Mehr Lal Soni Zia Fatehabadi – Rang-o-Noor (The Colour and the Light)
• Norman Nicholson – Sea to the West
• Sylvia Plath (posthumous) – Collected Poems, edited by Ted Hughes
• Kathleen Raine – Collected Poems, 1935–1980
• Richard L. Tierney – Collected Poems

Non-fiction

• Maya Angelou – The Heart of a Woman
• Colin Robert Chase – The Dating of Beowulf
• Mary Chesnut – Mary Chesnut's Civil War
• Hugo Brandt Corstius – Opperlandse taal- & letterkunde
• Daniel Dennett – Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology
• Nancy Dorian – Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect
• Timothy Findley – Famous Last Words
• Stephen Jay Gould – The Mismeasure of Man
• Dumas Malone – The Sage of Monticello
• V. S. Naipaul – Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey
• Giovanni Pettinato – The Archives of Ebla: An Empire Inscribed in Clay ^[20]
• Anne Scott-James – The Cottage Garden
• Viktor Suvorov – The Liberators

Births

• Jan 4 – Sarah Crossan, Irish young-adult writer
• April 7 – Lili Wilkinson, Australian young-adult writer
• May 19 – Kiera Cass, American young-adult writer
• May 20 – Ottessa Moshfegh, American novelist
• June 10 – Juno Dawson, born James Dawson, English young-adult LGBT writer
• July 10 – Karen Russell, American novelist
• July 27 – Dan Jones, British historian and TV presenter
• September 30 – Cecelia Ahern, Irish novelist
• October 3 – Leïla Slimani, Franco-Moroccan novelist ^[21]
• October 12 – NoViolet Bulawayo (Elizabeth Zandile Tshele), Zimbabwe-born novelist ^[22]
• October 31 – Irina Denezhkina, Russian writer
• December 11 – Hamish Blake, Australian comedian, actor and author
• December 13 – Mathis Bailey, American-Canadian novelist and fiction writer
• unknown dates
  • Amy Sackville, English novelist ^[23]
  • Sunjeev Sahota, English novelist ^[24]
  • Saud Alsanousi, Kuwaiti novelist
  • Olesya Mamchich, Ukrainian poet and children's writer ^[25]

Deaths

• January 5 – Lanza del Vasto, Italian-born philosopher, poet and activist (born 1901) ^[26]
• January 6 – A. J. Cronin, Scottish novelist (born 1896) ^[27]
• January 7 – John Pascal, American playwright, screenwriter, author and journalist (born 1932) ^[28]
• January 23 – Lobsang Rampa (Cyril Henry Hoskin), English author (born 1910)
• February 3 – Normand Poirier, American newspaper editor, journalist and essayist (born 1928) ^[29]
• February 17 – David Garnett, English novelist (born 1892) ^[30]
• February 23 – Nan Shepherd, Scottish novelist and poet (born 1893)
• March 7 – Bosley Crowther, American film critic (born 1905) ^[31]
• March 14 – Eleanor Perry, American screenwriter and author (born 1914) ^[32]
• March 20 – Pedro García Cabrera, Spanish poet (born 1905)
• March 29 – Clive Sansom, English-born Tasmanian poet and playwright (born 1910)
• April 23 – Josep Pla, Catalan Spanish journalist and writer (born 1897) ^[33]
• April 26 – Robert Garioch, Scottish poet (born 1909)
• May 8 – Uri Zvi Grinberg, Israeli poet writing in Hebrew and Yiddish (born 1896) ^[34]
• May 9 – Nelson Algren, American novelist (born 1909)
• May 18 – William Saroyan, American novelist and dramatist (born 1908) ^[35]
• May 30 – Gwendolyn B. Bennett, African-American writer and artist (born 1902)
• June 15 – Philip Toynbee, English novelist and journalist (born 1916)
• June 17 – Zerna Sharp, American writer and educator (born 1889) ^[36]
• June 18 – Pamela Hansford Johnson, English poet, novelist, playwright, literary and social critic (born 1912) ^[37]
• August 15 – Carol Ryrie Brink, American author (born 1895) ^[38]
• September 3 – Alec Waugh, English novelist (born 1898)
• September 7 – Christy Brown, Irish writer and painter (born 1932) ^[39]
• September 12 – Eugenio Montale, Italian poet (born 1896)
• October 20 – Mary Coyle Chase, American playwright (born 1906) ^[40]
• December 26 – Amber Reeves, New Zealand-born English scholar, feminist and novelist (born 1887)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Elias Canetti

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Chris Matthews, Al Jazzar; Tim Winton, An Open Swimmer
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Alan Gould, Astral Sea
• Miles Franklin Award: Peter Carey, Bliss

Canada

• See 1981 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Lucien Bodard, Anne Marie
• Prix Médicis French: François-Olivier Rousseau, L'Enfant d'Édouard
• Prix Médicis International: David Shahar, Le Jour de la comtesse

Spain

• Miguel de Cervantes Prize: Octavio Paz

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children ^[41]
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Robert Westall, The Scarecrows ^[42]
• Cholmondeley Award: Roy Fisher, Robert Garioch, Charles Boyle
• Eric Gregory Award: Alan Jenkins, Simon Rae, Marion Lomax, Philip Gross, Kathleen Jamie, Mark Abley, Roger Crowley, Ian Gregson
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children , and Paul Theroux, The Mosquito Coast
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Victoria Glendinning, Edith Sitwell: Unicorn Among Lions
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: D. J. Enright
• Whitbread Best Book Award: William Boyd, A Good Man in Africa

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Kathy Calloway, Heart of the Garfish
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Belles Lettres: Malcolm Cowley
• Dos Passos Prize: Gilbert Sorrentino
• Nebula Award: Gene Wolfe, The Claw of the Conciliator
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Katherine Paterson, Jacob Have I Loved ^[43]
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Beth Henley, Crimes of the Heart
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: John Kennedy Toole – A Confederacy of Dunces
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: James Schuyler: The Morning of the Poem

Elsewhere

• Hugo Award for Best Novel: The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge
• Premio Nadal: Carmen Gómez Ojea, Cantiga de aguero

• 1980s portal
• Literature portal

Notes

• Hahn, Daniel (2015). The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Second ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780198715542.

References

1. Tassie Seneviratne (June 1, 2014). "Burning Of The Jaffna Public Library: Whodunit?". Colombo Telegraph. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
2. Newsweek , 16 February 1981, p. 95; see also Philip Lewis, "The Post-Structuralist Condition", Diacritics 12:1 (1982): 2–24, p. 2.
3. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1979). Reports of the President and the Treasurer - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
4. Brian M. Stableford (2004). Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature. Scarecrow Press. p. 21. ISBN   978-0-8108-4938-9.
5. Janet Husband; Jonathan F. Husband (1990). Sequels: An Annotated Guide to Novels in Series. American Library Association. p. 98. ISBN   978-0-8389-0533-3.
6. Michel Deon; Michel Déon (1983). Where are You Dying Tonight?. H. Hamilton. p. 4. ISBN   978-0-241-10908-3.
7. Stephen M. Hart (2005). Gabriel García Márquez: Crónica de Una Muerte Anunciada. Grant & Cutler. p. 14. ISBN   978-0-7293-0445-0.
8. "1981 - Alasdair Gray's Lanark". National Library of Scotland. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
9. Michael Tapper (2014). Swedish Cops: From Sjöwall and Wahlöö to Stieg Larsson. Intellect Books. p. 134. ISBN   978-1-78320-188-4.
10. Charles A. Carpenter (1997). Modern Drama Scholarship and Criticism 1981-1990: An International Bibliography. Modern drama by University of Toronto Press. p. 425. ISBN   978-0-8020-0914-2.
11. Hahn 2015, p. 609
12. Rothman, Lily (8 June 2013). "How is 'Tiger Eyes' the First Movie Based on a Judy Blume Book?". Time. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
13. Stein, Ruth M. (1982). "Book reMarks: A Personal View of Current Juvenile Literature". Language Arts. 59 (4): 367–373. ISSN   0360-9170. JSTOR   41404080 . Retrieved 12 January 2022.
14. Hahn 2015, p. 227
15. Hahn 2015, p. 236
16. Hahn 2015, pp. 526-527
17. "Literature for Children". The Reading Teacher. 35 (8): 972–976. 1982. ISSN   0034-0561. JSTOR   20198135 . Retrieved 12 January 2022.
18. Hahn 2015, p. 620
19. Gussow, Mel (12 April 1981). "STAGE: WORLD PREMIERE OF SAMUEL BECKETT'S 'ROCKABY' AT STATE U." The New York Times. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
20. Howard Frederic Vos (1985). Genesis and Archaeology. Academic Books. p. 113. ISBN   978-0-310-33901-4.
21. Schwartzbrod, Alexandra (29 September 2014). "Leïla Slimani. "Madame Bovary X"". Liberation (in French). Retrieved 3 April 2018.
22. "NoViolet Bulawayo [real name Elizabeth Zandile Tshele] (1981 -)". Zimbabwe Monitor. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
23. "The Still Point by Amy Sackville". Orange Prize for Fiction. 2010. Archived from the original on 10 April 2010. Retrieved 27 November 2010.
24. "Sunjeev Sahota". Picador. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
25. "UKRAIŃSKIE POETKI O WOJNIE". Wizje (in Polish). 2022-02-26. Retrieved 2022-04-30.
26. Galiana, Ismael (1 July 1981). "Murió en Murcia el poeta y pacifista Lanza del Vasto: Apóstol de la no violencia" [The poet and pacifist Lanza del Vasto died in Murcia: Apostle of nonviolence](PDF). ABC (in Spanish). Madrid. p. 24.
27. Mitgang, Herbert (10 January 1981). "A. J. Cronin, author of 'Citadel' and 'Keys of the Kingdom', dies". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 May 2021.
28. The New York Times Biographical Service. New York Times & Arno Press. 1981. p. 99.
29. "Normand Poirier." New York Times . February 4, 1981
30. Palmer, Alan; Alan Warwick Palmer; Veronica Palmer (1987). Who's who in Bloomsbury. Harvester Press. p. 67. ISBN   978-0-7108-0312-2.
31. McFadden, Robert D. (March 8, 1981). "Bosley Crowther, 27 Years a Critic of Film for Times, is Dead at 75". The New York Times . Retrieved 19 March 2016.
32. Willis, John A. (1982). Screen World. Crown Publishers. p. 237. ISBN   978-0-517-54740-3.
33. Sobrer, Josep Miquel (1992). Catalonia, a Self-portrait. Indiana University Press. p. 157. ISBN   0-253-28883-5.
34. "Uri Zvi Greenberg, 83; Hebrew and Yiddish Poet". The New York Times. 10 May 1981.
35. Hamalian, Leo (1987). William Saroyan: The Man and the Writer Remembered. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. p. 233. ISBN   978-0-8386-3308-3.
36. Ohles, Frederik; Shirley G. Ohles; Shirley M. Ohles; John G. Ramsay (1997). Biographical Dictionary of Modern American Educators. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 290. ISBN   978-0-313-29133-3.
37. David, Deirdre (2017). Pamela Hansford Johnson : a writing life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-184328-0. OCLC   980257624.
38. Cullinan, Bernice E.; Person, Diane Goetz (2005). The Continuum Encyclopedia of Children's Literature. New York: Continuum. p. 112. ISBN   978-0-82641-778-7.
39. Peterkin, Tom (6 November 2007). "Christy Brown 'neglected by ex-prostitute wife'". The Daily Telegraph . London. Retrieved 6 November 2007.
40. Robinson, Alice M.; Vera Mowry Roberts; Milly S. Barranger (1989). Notable Women in the American Theatre: A Biographical Dictionary. Greenwood Press. p. 126. ISBN   978-0-313-27217-2.
41. "Who is Salman Rushdie? The writer who emerged from hiding". BBC News. 12 August 2022. Retrieved 12 August 2022.
42. Hahn 2015, p. 660
43. Hahn 2015, p. 657