1981 in literature

Events

May 31 – Burning of Jaffna library: An organized mob of police and government-sponsored paramilitias began burning the public library in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, destroying over 97,000 volumes in one of the most violent examples of ethnic book burning in the modern era.

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 in consequence of his position at the centre of a much publicised dispute within the Faculty of English concerning the teaching of structuralism.

PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction given for the first time.

Fiction

Kingsley Amis – 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

Samuel Beckett – Ill Seen Ill Said

Thomas Berger – Reinhart's Women

Pierre Berton – Flames Across the Border

Simon Bond – 101 Uses for a Dead Cat

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

L. Sprague de Camp – The Hand of Zei

L. Sprague de Camp & Catherine Crook de Camp – Footprints on Sand

Régine Deforges – La Bicyclette bleue ("The Blue Bicycle")

Samuel R. Delany – Distant Star

Michel Déon – Where Are You Dying Tonight? (Un déjeuner de soleil)

Cynthia Freeman – No Time for Tears

Gabriel García Márquez – Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Crónica de una muerte anunciada)

John Gardner – Licence Renewed

Charles L. Grant – Tales from the Nightside

Alasdair Gray – Lanark

Jan Guillou – Ondskan

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

Alan Judd – A Breed of Heroes

Ismail Kadare – The File on H (Dosja J)

Stephen King – Cujo

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")

Jean Raspail – Moi, Antoine de Tounens, roi de Patagonie

Alain Robbe-Grillet – Djinn

Harold Robbins – Goodbye, Janette

Lawrence Sanders – The Third Deadly Sin

Martin Cruz Smith – Gorky Park

Anja Snellman – Sonja O. kävi täällä

Muriel Spark – Loitering with Intent

Botho Strauß – Couples, Passersby (Paare, Passanten)

Paul Theroux – The Mosquito Coast

D. M. Thomas – The White Hotel

Jack Vance – The Book of Dreams

Mario Vargas Llosa – The War of the End of the World (La guerra del fin del mundo)

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

Judy Blume – Tiger Eyes

Roald Dahl – George's Marvellous Medicine

Rumer Godden – The Dragon of Og

Roger Hargreaves – Little Miss (first 13 books in the Little Miss series of 21)

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

Uri Orlev – The Island on Bird Street (האי ברחוב הציפורים)

Ruth Park – The Muddle-Headed Wombat is Very Bad

Alvin Schwartz – Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Maurice Sendak – Outside Over There

Bill Peet - Encore for Eleanor

Robert Westall – The Scarecrows

Drama

Samuel Beckett – Rockaby

Edward Bond – Restoration

John Krizanc – Tamara

Larry Shue – The Nerd

Barney Simon – Woza Albert!

Botho Strauß – Kalldewey, Farce

Patrick Süskind – Der Kontrabaß

Tennessee Williams – The Notebook of Trigorin

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

Mary Chesnut – Mary Chesnut's Civil War

Hugo Brandt Corstius – Opperlandse taal- & letterkunde

Daniel Dennett – Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology

Timothy Findley – Famous Last Words

Stephen Jay Gould – The Mismeasure of Man

Dumas Malone – The Sage of Monticello

Anne Scott-James – The Cottage Garden

Ian Smith – The Great Betrayal

Viktor Suvorov – The Liberators

Births

July 10 – Karen Russell, American novelist

December 10 – NoViolet Bulawayo (Elizabeth Zandile Tshele), Zimbabwe-born novelist

September 30 – Cecelia Ahern, Irish novelist

Unknown dates

Amy Sackville, English novelist

Sunjeev Sahota, English novelist

Deaths

January 9 – A. J. Cronin, Scottish novelist (born 1896)

February 17 – David Garnett, English novelist (born 1892)

February 23 – Nan Shepherd, Scottish novelist and poet (born 1893)

March 7 – Bosley Crowther, American film critic (born 1905)

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)

April 26 – Robert Garioch, Scottish poet (born 1909)

May 8 – Uri Zvi Grinberg, Israeli poet writing in Hebrew and Yiddish (born 1896)

May 9 – Nelson Algren, American novelist (born 1909)

May 18 – William Saroyan, American novelist and dramatist (born 1908)

May 30 – Gwendolyn B. Bennett, African American writer and artist (born 1902)

June 15 – Philip Toynbee, English novelist and journalist (born 1916)

September 3 – Alec Waugh, English novelist (born 1898)

September 12 – Eugenio Montale, Italian poet (born 1896)

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

Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Robert Westall, The Scarecrows

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

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