1986 in literature

Events

July 21 – Michael Grade, Controller of BBC1, axes plans to televise Ian Curteis's The Falklands Play.

September 26 – Bloomsbury Publishing is set up in London by Nigel Newton.

Fiction

Kingsley Amis – The Old Devils

V. C. Andrews – Garden of Shadows

Piers Anthony – Ghost

Jeffrey Archer – A Matter of Honour

James Axler – Pilgrimage to Hell and Red Holocaust

Iain Banks – The Bridge

Thomas Bernhard – Extinction (Auslöschung)

Azouz Begag – Le Gone du Chaâba

Anita Brookner – A Misalliance

Orson Scott Card – Speaker for the Dead

Ana Castillo – Mixquiahuala Letters

Tom Clancy – Red Storm Rising

James Clavell – Whirlwind

Jackie Collins – Hollywood Husbands

Pat Conroy – The Prince of Tides

Hugh Cook – The Wizards and the Warriors

Bernard Cornwell – Sharpe's Regiment

Bernard & Judy Cornwell (as Susannah Kells) – Coat of Arms (also as The Aristocrats)

Fernando Del Paso – Noticias del Imperio

Marguerite Duras – Blue Eyes, Black Hair

James Ellroy – Silent Terror

Shusaku Endo (遠藤 周作) – Scandal (スキャンダル)

Nuruddin Farah – Maps (first part of Blood in the Sun trilogy)

Richard Ford – The Sportswriter

John Gardner – Nobody Lives For Ever

Jacques Godbout – Une Histoire américaine

Peter Handke – Repetition

Ernest Hemingway - The Garden of Eden

Carl Hiaasen – Tourist Season

Kazuo Ishiguro – An Artist of the Floating World

Brian Jacques – Redwall

Stephen King – It

Ivan Klíma – Láska a smetí (Love and Garbage, banned until 1989)

Judith Krantz – I'll Take Manhattan

Louis L'Amour – Last of the Breed

Joe R. Lansdale – Dead in the West

John le Carré – A Perfect Spy

David Leavitt – The Lost Language of Cranes

Tanith Lee – Dreams of Dark and Light: The Great Short Fiction of Tanith Lee

Deena Linett – The Translator's Wife

Gordon Lish – Dear Mr. Capote

H. P. Lovecraft – Dagon and Other Macabre Tales corrected edition

Robert Ludlum – The Bourne Supremacy

Amin Maalouf – Leo Africanus

Javier Marías – El hombre sentimental (The Man of Feeling, 2003)

Allan Massie – Augustus (first in the Roman series)

Robert Munsch – Love You Forever

Patrick O'Brian – The Reverse of the Medal

Ellis Peters

The Raven in the Foregate

The Rose Rent

Terry Pratchett – The Light Fantastic

Reynolds Price – Kate Vaiden

James Purdy – In the Hollow of His Hand

Jean Raspail – Who Will Remember the People...

José Saramago – The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis)

Ken Saro-Wiwa – Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English

Idries Shah – Kara Kush

Danielle Steel – Wanderlust

Peter Taylor – A Summons to Memphis

James Tiptree, Jr. – Tales of the Quintana Roo

Mario Vargas Llosa – ¿Quién mató a Palomino Molero?

Vladimir Voinovich – Moscow 2042

Roger Zelazny – Blood of Amber

Children and young people

Janet and Allan Ahlberg – The Jolly Postman

Chris Van Allsburg - The Stranger

Tony Bradman – Dilly the Dinosaur (first in the eponymous series of 22 books)

Robert J. Burch – Queenie Peavy

Joy Cowley

(with Jan van der Voo) – Turnips For Dinner

(with Martin Bailey) – The King's Pudding

Jill Eggleton

(with Kelvin Hawley) – Cat and Mouse

Diana Wynne Jones – Howl's Moving Castle

Michael de Larrabeiti

The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis

The Provençal Tales

Arnold Lobel - The Random House Book of Mother Goose

Ann M. Martin

Kristy's Great Idea

Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls

The Truth about Stacey (first three in The Baby-Sitters Club series of over 200 books, 35 written by Martin)

Robert Munsch – Love You Forever

Jenny Nimmo – The Snow Spider (first in The Magician Trilogy)

Bill Peet – Zella, Zack, and Zodiac

Alison Prince – The Type One Super Robot

Gillian Rubinstein – Space Demons

Drama

Caryl Churchill and David Lan – A Mouthful of Birds

Tomson Highway – The Rez Sisters

Willy Russell – Shirley Valentine

Poetry

Kama Sywor Kamanda – Chants de brumes

Non-fiction

Martin Amis – The Moronic Inferno: And Other Visits to America

Bernard Bailyn – Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution

Richard Dawkins – The Blind Watchmaker

Adrian Edmondson et al. – How to be a Complete Bastard

Sita Ram Goel – History of Hindu–Christian Encounters, AD 304 to 1996

Temple Grandin (with Margaret Scariano) – Emergence: Labeled Autistic

Kumari Jayawardena – Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World

Mark Mathabane – Kaffir Boy

Farley Mowat – My Discovery of America

Marc Reisner – Cadillac Desert

Richard Rhodes – The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Mary Wilson – Dreamgirl: My Life As a Supreme

Births

July 3 – Chris Bush, English playwright, artistic director and comedian

Unknown date

Caroline Bird, English poet and dramatist

Chigozie Obioma, Nigerian novelist

Deaths

January 1 – Lord David Cecil, English critic and biographer (born 1902)

January 4 – Christopher Isherwood, English-born novelist (born 1904)

January 7 – Juan Rulfo, Mexican writer, screenwriter and photographer (born 1917)

January 24 – L. Ron Hubbard, American science fiction writer, founder of Scientology (born 1911)

February 4 – Phyllis Shand Allfrey, Dominican writer (born 1908)

February 9 – Dora Oake Russell, Newfoundland writer, diarist and journalist (born 1912)

February 11 – Frank Herbert, American science fiction novelist (born 1920)

February 28 – Edith Ditmas, English archivist, historian and writer (born 1896)

March 4 – Elizabeth Smart, Canadian poet and novelist (born 1913)

March 15 – Pandelis Prevelakis, Greek novelist, poet, dramatist and essayist (born 1909)

March 18 – Bernard Malamud, American novelist (born 1914)

April 12 – Valentin Kataev, Russian novelist and dramatist (born 1897)

April 14

Simone de Beauvoir, French philosopher and feminist writer (born 1908)

Jean Genet, French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist and political activist (born 1910)

May 15 – Theodore H. White, American journalist, historian, and novelist (born 1915)

June 14 – Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer (born 1899)

August 1 – Lena Kennedy, English romantic novelist (born 1914)

August 3 – Beryl Markham, English-born Kenyan aviator and author (born 1902)

August 20 – Milton Acorn, Canadian poet, writer, and playwright (born 1923)

September 11 – Noel Streatfeild, English novelist and children's writer (born 1895)

December 17 – J. F. Hendry, Scottish poet (born 1912)

December 19 – V. C. Andrews, American novelist (born 1923)

Awards

Nobel Prize for Literature: Wole Soyinka

Australia

The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Robin Walton, Glace Fruits

C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Rhyll McMaster, Washing the Money and John A. Scott, St. Clair

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Robert Gray Selected Poems 1963–83

Mary Gilmore Prize: Stephen Williams, A Crowd of Voices

Miles Franklin Award: Elizabeth Jolley, The Well

Canada

See 1986 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

Prix Goncourt: Michel Host, Valet de nuit

Prix Médicis French: Pierre Combescot, Les Funérailles de la Sardine

Prix Médicis International: John Hawkes, Aventures dans le commerce des peaux en Alaska

United Kingdom

Booker Prize: Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils

Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Berlie Doherty, Granny Was a Buffer Girl

Cholmondeley Award: Lawrence Durrell, James Fenton, Selima Hill

Eric Gregory Award: Mick North, Lachlan Mackinnon, Oliver Reynolds, Stephen Romer

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Jenny Joseph, Persephone

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: D. Felicitas Corrigan, Helen Waddell

Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Norman MacCaig

Whitbread Best Book Award: Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World

United States

Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Robley Wilson, Kingdoms of the Ordinary

American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Sidney Kingsley

Frost Medal: Allen Ginsberg / Richard Eberhart

Nebula Award: Orson Scott Card, Speaker For the Dead

Newbery Medal for children's literature: Patricia MacLachlan, Sarah, Plain and Tall

Prometheus Award: Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy

Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Henry Taylor, The Flying Change

Whiting Awards:

Fiction: Kent Haruf, Denis Johnson, Padgett Powell, Mona SimpsonPoetry: John Ash, Hayden Carruth, Frank Stewart, Ruth StoneNonfiction: Darryl Pinckney (nonfiction/fiction)Plays: August Wilson

Elsewhere

Premio Nadal: Manuel Vicent, Balada de Caín