1976 in literature

Events

January – First Kolkata Book Fair opens in India.

June 21 – Market Theatre (Johannesburg) opened as a multiracial venue by Barney Simon.

September 9 – The Royal Shakespeare Company opens a memorable production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, England, with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench in the lead roles directed by Trevor Nunn.

October 25 – Official opening of the Royal National Theatre on the South Bank in London, in premises designed by Sir Denys Lasdun, with a performance of Goldoni's 18th-century comedy Il Campiello. Its Lyttleton Theatre first previewed on 8 March, followed on 16 March by a performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet by Albert Finney directed by Peter Hall; and its Olivier Theatre opened on October 4 with a production of Marlowe's Elizabethan drama Tamburlaine, also with Finney in the title rôle directed by Peter Hall.

Novelist Antonio di Benedetto is imprisoned and tortured under the National Reorganization Process (military dictatorship) in Argentina.

Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers established in new premises at Nanterre.

Saul Bellow wins both the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Fiction

Émile Ajar (Romain Gary) – Hocus Bogus

Kingsley Amis – The Alteration

Saul Bellow – To Jerusalem and Back

Peter Benchley – The Deep

Erma Bombeck – The Grass is Always Greener over the Septic Tank

Marjorie Bowen – Kecksies and Other Twilight Tales

William F. Buckley – Saving the Queen (the first Blackford Oakes thriller)

Anthony Burgess – Beard's Roman Women

Ramsey Campbell – The Height of the Scream

Leonora Carrington – The Hearing Trumpet

Raymond Carver – Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?

Agatha Christie (posthumous) – Sleeping Murder (the last Miss Marple story, written c. 1940)

A. J. Cronin – Lady with Carnations

L. Sprague de Camp – The Virgin & the Wheels

Samuel R. Delany – Triton

August Derleth – Dwellers in Darkness

Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny – Deus Irae

G. B. Edwards (posthumous) – The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

Buchi Emecheta – The Bride Price

Marian Engel – Bear

Richard Ford – A Piece of My Heart

Brian Garfield – The Last Hard Men

Judith Guest – Ordinary People

Alex Haley – Roots: The Saga of an American Family

Frank Herbert – Children of Dune

Etienne Leroux – Magersfontein, O Magersfontein!

Ira Levin – The Boys from Brazil

Robert Ludlum – The Gemini Contenders

Ryū Murakami (村上 龍) – Almost Transparent Blue (限りなく透明に近いブルー, Kagirinaku tōmei ni chikai burū)

R. K. Narayan – The Painter of Signs

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle – Inferno

Robert Nye – Falstaff

Breandán Ó hEithir – Lig Sinn i gCathú

Marge Piercy – Woman on the Edge of Time

Anthony Powell – Infants of the Spring

Terry Pratchett – The Dark Side of the Sun

Manuel Puig – El beso de la mujer araña (Kiss of the Spider Woman)

Jean Raspail – Le Jeu du Roi

Ishmael Reed – Flight To Canada

Ruth Rendell – A Demon in My View

Anne Rice – Interview with the Vampire

Hubert Selby, Jr. – The Demon

Tom Sharpe – Wilt

Sidney Sheldon – A Stranger in the Mirror

Muriel Spark – The Takeover

John Steinbeck- The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

Jacqueline Susann – Dolores

Paul Theroux – The Family Arsenal

Leon Uris – Trinity (novel)

Melvin Van Peebles – Just an Old Sweet Song

Gore Vidal – 1876

Kurt Vonnegut – Slapstick (novel)

Roger Zelazny

Doorways in the Sand

The Hand of Oberon

My Name is Legion

Children and young people

Chester Aaron (with Irmela Brender and Willi Glasauer) – Besser als Lachen (Better than Laughter)

Natalie Babbitt – Tuck Everlasting

Judy Blume

Blubber

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

Nancy Bond – A String in the Harp

Eve Bunting – One More Flight

Hans-Joachim Gelberg (with Willi Glasauer etc.) – Neues vom Rumpelstilzchen und andere Haus-Märchen von 43 Autoren]] (More on Rumpelstiltskin and other Fairy Tales by 43 Authors)

Adèle Geras – Tea at Mrs Manderby's

Michael de Larrabeiti – The Borribles

Ruth Manning-Sanders – A Book of Monsters

Ruth Park – The Muddle-Headed Wombat on Clean-Up Day

Dennis Nolan

Big Pig

Monster Bubbles: A Counting Book

Drama

Samuel Beckett

Footfalls

That Time

Maeve Binchy – End of Term

Howard Brenton – Weapons of Happiness

Ken Campbell – Illuminatus!

David Edgar – Destiny

Athol Fugard – Sizwe Banzi Is Dead

Dorothy Hewett – This Old Man Came Rolling Home

Alexander Vampilov – Duck Hunting («Утиная охота», Utinaya okhota, published 1970, first performed)

Non-fiction

Maya Angelou – Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas

John G. Bennett (died 1974) – Journeys in Islamic Countries

Richard Dawkins – The Selfish Gene

L. Sprague de Camp – Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers

Norman F. Dixon – On the Psychology of Military Incompetence

Elisabeth Elliot – Let Me Be a Woman

Michel Foucault – Histoire de la sexualité, 1: La Volonte de savoir

Julien Gracq – The Narrow Waters

Christopher Isherwood – Christopher and His Kind

Ryszard Kapuściński – Another Day of Life

Maxine Hong Kingston – The Woman Warrior

Arthur Koestler – The Thirteenth Tribe

H. P. Lovecraft

Selected Letters IV (1932–1934)

Selected Letters V (1934–1937)

To Quebec and the Stars

Paul Morand – The Allure of Chanel

Peter C. Newman – The Canadian Establishment

Jean-François Revel – The Totalitarian Temptation

Geoffrey Smith

Mr Smith's Flower Garden

Mr Smith's Vegetable Garden

Arnold J. Toynbee – Mankind and Mother Earth

Andrew Vachss – The Life-Style Violent Juvenile

Simon Wiesenthal – The Sunflower

Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein – The Final Days

Births

February 3 – Isla Fisher, Australian actress and author

August 29 – T. James Belich (Colorado Tolston), American playwright, novelist and actor

Deaths

January 12 – Agatha Christie, English crime writer (born 1890)

January 25 – Victor Ehrenberg, German historian (born 1891)

February 2 – Barbara Euphan Todd, English children's writer (born 1890)

February 12 – John Lewis, Welsh philosopher (born 1889)

March 13 – Sergiu Dan, Romanian novelist and journalist (born 1903)

March 24 – E. H. Shepard, English illustrator and autobiographer (born 1879)

March 31 – Edward Streeter, American humorist (born 1891)

April 22 – Joe David Brown, American novelist and journalist (born 1915)

April 28 – Richard Hughes, English novelist (born 1900)

June 18 – Malcolm Johnson, American journalist (born 1904)

July 3 – Alexander Lernet-Holenia, Austrian poet, dramatist and fiction writer (born 1897)

August 29 – Kazi Nazrul Islam, Bengali poet (born 1899)

September 10 – Dalton Trumbo, American novelist and screenwriter (born 1905)

October 30 – Barbu Solacolu, Romanian poet, translator and economist (born 1897)

November 4 – Robert Speaight, English actor, biographer and essayist (born 1904)

November 6 – Patrick Dennis, American novelist (pancreatic cancer, born 1921)

December 21 – Munro Leaf, American children's author (born 1905)

December 22 – Martín Luis Guzmán, Mexican novelist and journalist (born 1887)

December 26 – Yashpal, Hindi novelist (born 1903)

December 29 – G. B. Edwards, Guernsey-born writer (born 1899)

Unknown date – Mark Slonim, Russian literary historian and critic (born 1894)

Awards

Nobel Prize for Literature: Saul Bellow

Canada

See 1976 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

Prix Goncourt: Patrick Grainville, Les Flamboyants

Prix Médicis French: Marc Cholodenko, Les États du désert

Prix Médicis International: Doris Lessing, The Gold Coronet – United Kingdom

Spain

Premio Miguel de Cervantes: Jorge Guillén

United Kingdom

Booker Prize: David Storey, Saville

Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Jan Mark, Thunder and Lightnings

Cholmondeley Award: Peter Porter, Fleur Adcock

Eric Gregory Award: Stewart Brown, Valerie Gillies, Paul Groves, Paul Hyland, Nigel Jenkins, Andrew Motion, Tom Paulin, William Peskett

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: John Banville, Doctor Copernicus

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Ronald Hingley, A New Life of Chekhov

United States

Frost Medal: A. M. Sullivan

Nebula Award: Frederik Pohl, Man Plus

Newbery Medal for children's literature: Susan Cooper, The Grey King

Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Michael Bennett for concept, choreography, and direction; James Kirkwood, Jr. for book, Marvin Hamlisch for lyrics, Nicholas Dante for music, A Chorus Line

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: John Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

Elsewhere

Miles Franklin Award: David Ireland, The Glass Canoe

Premio Nadal: Raúl Guerra Garrido, Lectura insólita de El Capital

Viareggio Prize: Mario Tobino, La bella degli specchi