1977 in literature

Events

February 20 – An episode of Doctor on the Go, co-written by Douglas Adams and Graham Chapman, marks the beginning of Adams' career writing for BBC radio.

March 4 – Andrés Caicedo's novel ¡Que viva la música! ("Let Music Live!", translated as Liveforever) is published in his hometown of Cali, Colombia. This afternoon he commits suicide by overdose, age 25.

July 11 – The English magazine Gay News is found guilty of blasphemous libel for publishing a homoerotic poem, "The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name" by James Kirkup, in a case (Whitehouse v Lemon) brought on behalf of Mary Whitehouse's National Viewers and Listeners Association at the Old Bailey in London. John Mortimer appears for the defence. This is the first time a prosecution for this offence has been brought since 1921, and will be the last before the offence is abolished in 2008.

September 15 – Christopher Tolkien, with Guy Gavriel Kay, completes and publishes his late father's work, The Silmarillion.

Fall – Philosophy and Literature, an academic journal that explores the connections between literary and philosophical studies by presenting ideas on the aesthetics of literature, critical theory, and the philosophical interpretation of literature, is founded at Johns Hopkins University.

V. S. Naipaul declines the offer of a CBE.

Fiction

Ales Adamovich, Janka Bryl and Uladzimir Kalesnik – Я из огненной деревни (Belarusian: Я з вогненнай вёскі; Out of the Fire)

Jorge Amado – Tieta do Agreste

Jay Anson – The Amityville Horror

Margaret Atwood – Dancing Girls

Richard Bach – Illusions

Richard Bachman – Rage

Leland Bardwell – Girl on a Bicycle

Gerd Brantenberg – Egalias døtre (The Daughters of Egalia, 1985, also Egalia's Daughters, 1986)

Terry Brooks – The Sword of Shannara

Andrés Caicedo – ¡Que viva la música!

J. M. Coetzee – In the Heart of the Country

Robin Cook – Coma

Robert Coover – The Public Burning

Basil Copper – And Afterward, the Dark

L. Sprague de Camp

The Hostage of Zir

The Queen of Zamba

L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter – Conan of Aquilonia

Michel Déon – The Foundling's War

Philip K. Dick – A Scanner Darkly

Joan Didion – A Book of Common Prayer

Buchi Emecheta – The Slave Girl

Howard Fast – The Immigrants

Timothy Findley – The Wars

Leon Forrest – The Bloodworth Orphans

John Fowles – Daniel Martin

Marilyn French – The Women's Room

Pauline Gedge – Child of the Morning

Günter Grass – The Flounder (Der Butt)

Mark Helprin – Refiner's Fire

Shirley Hughes – Dogger

Erica Jong – How to Save Your Own Life

Elias Khoury – الجبل الصغير (al-Jabal al-saghir, The Little Mountain)

Stephen King – The Shining

John le Carré – The Honourable Schoolboy

Ernest Lehman – The French Atlantic Affair

Robert Ludlum – The Chancellor Manuscript

Brian Lumley – The Horror at Oakdeene and Others

George R. R. Martin – Dying of the Light

Colleen McCullough – The Thorn Birds

Larry McMurtry – Terms of Endearment

Robert Merle – Fortune de France

Toni Morrison – Song of Solomon

Iris Murdoch – The Sea, the Sea

Péter Nádas – The End of a Family Story

Patrick O'Brian – The Mauritius Command

Ellis Peters – A Morbid Taste for Bones

Barbara Pym – Quartet in Autumn

Ruth Rendell – A Judgement in Stone

Alun Richards – Ennal's Point

Harold Robbins – Dreams Die First

Paul Scott – Staying On

Erich Segal – Oliver's Story

Irwin Shaw – Beggarman, Thief

M. P. Shiel – Prince Zaleski and Cummings King Monk

Sidney Sheldon – Bloodline

Elizabeth Smart – A Bonus

Botho Strauß – Devotion

Remy Sylado – Gali Lobang Gila Lobang

Craig Thomas – Firefox

J. R. R. Tolkien – The Silmarillion

Melvin Van Peebles – The True American, A Folk Fable

Mario Vargas Llosa – Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (La tía Julia y el escribidor)

P. G. Wodehouse – Sunset at Blandings (posthumous)

Christopher Wood – James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me

Children and young people

Richard Adams – The Plague Dogs

Sandra Boynton – Hippos Go Berserk!

Helen Cresswell – The Bagthorpe Saga

Rumer Godden – The Rocking Horse Secret

Diana Wynne Jones – Charmed Life

Ruth Manning-Sanders – A Book of Enchantments and Curses

Maurice Sendak – Seven Little Monsters

Barbara Smucker – Underground to Canada (also Runaway to Freedom: A Story of the Underground Railway)

Bill Peet - Big Bad Bruce

Karin Bolte (with Willi Glasauer) - Wie Alfred berühmt wurde und andere Erzählungen für Kinder|How Alfred Became Famous and Other Stories for Children

Irmela Brender (with Hans-Joachim Gelberg and Willi Glasauer) - Leseladen: Orte, innen und außen|Leseladen: Inside Out Places

Willi Glasauer - Le Journal Enseveli|The Buried Newspaper

Drama

Robert Bolt – State of Revolution

Tony Harrison (adapter) – The Mysteries

Mike Leigh – Abigail's Party

Heiner Müller – Die Hamletmaschine

Mary O'Malley – Once a Catholic

Dennis Potter – Brimstone and Treacle

Poetry

Frank Belknap Long – In Mayan Splendor

Non-fiction

Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. – The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business

Bruce Chatwin – In Patagonia

Robert Coles – Children of Crisis

vol. 4, Eskimos, Indians, Chicanos

vol. 5, The Privileged Ones: The Well-off and the Rich in America

Esther Deans – Esther Deans' Gardening Book: Growing Without Digging

Patrick Leigh Fermor – A Time Of Gifts

Len Deighton – Fighter: the True Story of the Battle of Britain

Jim Fixx – The Complete Book of Running

Michael Herr – Dispatches

Edith Holden (died 1920) – The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady

Bharati Mukherjee and Clark Blaise – Days and Nights in Calcutta

David M. Potter – The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861

E. F. Schumacher – A Guide for the Perplexed

Peter Ustinov – Dear Me

Births

February 21 – Jonathan Safran Foer, American novelist

August 24 - John Green, American author and YouTube vlogger

October 16 – Laura Wade, English playwright

September 15 – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian novelist

November 12 – Richelle Mead, American young-adult novelist

Unknown date – Tena Štivičić, Croatian playwright

Deaths

January 14 – Anaïs Nin, French-Cuban erotic novelist and diarist (born 1903)

February 27 – John Dickson Carr, American crime novelist (born 1906)

March 4

Andrés Caicedo, Colombian novelist and cinéaste (suicide, born 1951)

Alexandru Ivasiuc, Romanian novelist (killed in earthquake, born 1933)

March 15 – Hubert Aquin, French Canadian novelist, essayist and political activist (suicide, born 1929))

April 7 – Jim Thompson, American fiction writer (born 1906)

April 11 – Jacques Prévert, French poet and screenwriter (born 1900)

May 9 – James Jones, American novelist (heart failure, born 1921)

July 2 – Vladimir Nabokov, Russian/American novelist (born 1899)

August 26 – H. A. Rey, German-born American children's writer and illustrator (born 1898)

September 4 – E. F. Schumacher, German-born economist (born 1911)

September 12 – Robert Lowell, American poet (heart attack, born 1917)

October 27 – James M. Cain, American novelist and newspaperman (born 1892)

November 10 – Dennis Wheatley, English occult novelist (born 1897)

November 30

Miloš Crnjanski, Serbian poet and novelist (born 1893)

Terence Rattigan, English dramatist (bone cancer, born 1911)

December 9 – Clarice Lispector, Brazilian novelist (ovarian cancer, born 1920)

December 22 – Frank Thiess, German novelist (born 1890)

Unknown dates

Héctor Germán Oesterheld, Argentine comic book writer (disappearance, born 1919)

Gurbaksh Singh Preetlari, Punjabi novelist (born 1914)

Awards

Nobel Prize in Literature: Vicente Aleixandre

Canada

1977 Governor General's Awards

France

Prix Goncourt: Didier Decoin, John l'enfer

Prix Médicis French: Michel Butel, L'Autre Amour

Prix Médicis International: Héctor Bianciotti, Le Traité des saisons – Argentina

Spain

Premio Miguel de Cervantes: Alejo Carpentier

United Kingdom

Booker Prize: Paul Mark Scott, Staying On

Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Gene Kemp, The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler

Eric Gregory Award: Tony Flynn, Michael Vince, David Cooke, Douglas Marshall, Melissa Murray

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: John le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: George Painter, Chateaubriand: Volume 1 – The Longed-For Tempests

Knighthood for services to the theatre: Peter Hall

Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Norman Nicholson

Whitbread Best Book Award: Beryl Bainbridge, Injury Time

United States

American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for the Novel, Saul Bellow

Nebula Award: Frederik Pohl, Gateway

Newbery Medal for children's literature: Mildred D. Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science: Gerard K. O'Neill, The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space

Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Michael Cristofer, The Shadow Box

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: no award given

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: James Merrill, Divine Comedies

Pulitzer Prize for History: David M. Potter: The Impending Crisis, 1841-1861 (Completed and edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher).

Pulitzer Prize for Biography: John E. Mack: A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T.E. Lawrence

Rest of the World

Miles Franklin Award: Ruth Park, Swords and Crowns and Rings

Premio Nadal: José Asenjo Sedano, Conversación sobre la guerra

Viareggio Prize: Davide Lajolo, Veder l'erba dalla parte delle radici