1987 in literature

Events

April – K. W. Jeter coins the term "Steampunk" in a letter published in Locus: the magazine of the science fiction & fantasy field.

June – Virago Press of London publishes Down the Road, Worlds Away, a collection of short stories ostensibly by Rahila Khan, a young Muslim woman living in England. Three weeks later, Toby Forward, an Anglican clergyman, admits to writing them and the publisher withdraws the book. "He, unlike the editors at Virago, had grown up in precisely the kind of area and social conditions that the book described . . . Although the book never claimed to be other than a work of fiction, the publishers destroyed the stock still in the warehouse, and recalled all unsold copies from the bookshops, thus turning it into an expensive bibliographical rarity . . ."

August – New building for the National Library of New Zealand in Wellington opens.

Tom Wolfe is paid US $5 million for the film rights to his novel The Bonfire of the Vanities (published in book format in October), a record fee to an author at this time.

Ian Rankin's Knots and Crosses, first of the Inspector Rebus detective novels set around Edinburgh is published in London.

Fiction

Chinua Achebe – Anthills of the Savannah

Peter Ackroyd – Chatterton (shortlisted for Booker Prize 1987)

Douglas Adams – Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Martin Amis – Einstein's Monsters

Gilles Archambault – L'Obsédante obèse et autres agressions

Paul Auster

The New York Trilogy

In the Country of Last Things

Iain Banks

Consider Phlebas (as Iain M. Banks)

Espedair Street

Clive Barker – Weaveworld

Greg Bear – The Forge of God

Thomas Berger – Being Invisible

William Boyd – The New Confessions

Marion Zimmer Bradley – The Firebrand

Truddi Chase – When Rabbit Howls

Tom Clancy – Patriot Games

Hugh Cook

The Wordsmiths and the Warguild

The Women and the Warlords

Robin Cook – Outbreak

Bernard Cornwell

Redcoat

Sharpe's Rifles

Robert Crais – The Monkey's Raincoat

L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp – The Incorporated Knight

Jenny Diski – Rainforest

Jim Dodge – Not Fade Away

Roddy Doyle – The Commitments

Bret Easton Ellis – The Rules of Attraction

James Ellroy – Black Dahlia

Carlos Fuentes – Christopher Unborn

John Gardner – No Deals, Mr. Bond

Kaye Gibbons – Ellen Foster

Ken Grimwood – Replay

Tom Holt – Expecting Someone Taller

Josephine Humphreys – Rich in Love

Dương Thu Hương – Bên kia bờ ảo vọng ("Beyond Illusions")

John Jakes – Heaven and Hell

Tahar Ben Jelloun – La Nuit sacrée ("The Sacred Night")

Garrison Keillor – Leaving Home: A Collection of Lake Wobegon Stories

Jesse Lee Kercheval – The Dogeater

Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa – Ualalapi

Stephen King

Misery

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

The Tommyknockers

The Eyes of the Dragon

Penelope Lively – Moon Tiger

Ian McEwan – The Child in Time

Betty Mahmoody – Not Without My Daughter

James A. Michener – Legacy

Finola Moorhead – Remember the Tarantella

Toni Morrison – Beloved

Haruki Murakami (村上 春樹) – Norwegian Wood

V. S. Naipaul – The Enigma of Arrival

Silvina Ocampo – Y así sucesivamente (stories)

Michael Ondaatje – In the Skin of A Lion

Robert B. Parker – Pale Kings and Princes

Gary Paulsen – Hatchet

Ellis Peters – The Hermit of Eyton Forest

Rosamunde Pilcher – The Shell Seekers

Peter Pohl – Vi kallar honom Anna

Terry Pratchett

Equal Rites

Mort

Paul Quarrington – King Leary

Edward Rutherfurd – Sarum

José Saramago – Baltasar and Blimunda

Leonardo Sciascia – Porte aperte

Michael Shea – Polyphemus

Sidney Sheldon – Windmills of the Gods

Lucius Shepard – The Jaguar Hunter

Carol Shields – Swann: A Mystery

Michael Slade – Ghoul

Danielle Steel

Fine Things

Kaleidoscope

Hồ Anh Thái – Người và xe chạy dưới ánh trăng (Men and Vehicles Run in the Moonlight)

Scott Turow – Presumed Innocent

Andrew Vachss – Strega

Mario Vargas Llosa – The Storyteller (El hablador)

Gore Vidal – Empire

Barbara Vine – A Fatal Inversion

William T. Vollmann – You Bright and Risen Angels

Kurt Vonnegut – Bluebeard

Gene Wolfe – The Urth of the New Sun

Tom Wolfe – The Bonfire of the Vanities

Gamel Woolsey (posthumously) – One Way of Love (written 1930)

Roger Zelazny – Sign of Chaos

Children and young people

Chris Van Allsburg – The Z Was Zapped (alphabet book)

Tedd Arnold – No Jumping on the Bed!

Anne Fine – Madame Doubtfire

Willi Glasauer – Grüße aus der Fremde|Greetings from the Surreal

Julius Lester – The Tales of Uncle Remus: the Adventures of Brer Rabbit

Bill Peet – Jethro and Joel Were a Troll

Ruth Thomas – The Runaways

Theresa Tomlinson – The Flither Pickers (first in the Against the Tide trilogy)

Audrey Wood – Heckedy Peg

Jane Yolen – Owl Moon

Drama

Nezihe Araz – Afife Jale

Caryl Churchill – Serious Money

Robert Harling – Steel Magnolias

Liz Lochhead – Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off

Warren Manzi – Perfect Crime

Peter Shaffer – Lettice and Lovage

Non-fiction

Allan Bloom – The Closing of the American Mind

David Bohm – Science, Order, and Creativity

Robert V. Bruce – The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846–1876

Bruce Chatwin – The Songlines

Nien Cheng – Life and Death in Shanghai

Bill Cosby – Time Flies

Andrea Dworkin – Intercourse

C. Z. Guest – First Garden (approximate year – book undated)

Paul Kennedy – The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict From 1500 to 2000

Nicholas Kenyon (editor) – Authenticity and Early Music

Steven Long – Death Without Dignity: The Story of the First Nursing Home Corporation Indicted for Murder

Salman Rushdie – The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey

Peter Wright – Spycatcher

Births

December 15 – Mayra Dias Gomes, Brazilian journalist and columnist

Unknown date – Mina Adampour, Norwegian journalist, politician and activist of Iranian origin

Deaths

January 15 – George Markstein, German-born English journalist and thriller writer (kidney failure, born 1926)

February 2 – Alistair MacLean, Scottish thriller writer (heart attack, born 1922)

February 4 – Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, Welsh journalist and broadcaster (born 1908)

February 10 – William Rose, American screenwriter (born 1918)

February 22 – Andy Warhol, American artist, director and writer (cardiac arrhythmia, born 1928)

March 4 – Maria Jolas (Maria McDonald), American-born French publisher and campaigner (born 1893)

April 4 – C. L. Moore, American science fiction author (born 1911)

April 11 – Erskine Caldwell, American novelist (born 1903)

May 13 – Richard Ellmann, American-born biographer (born 1918)

May 30 – Norman Nicholson, English poet (born 1914)

June 6 – Fulton Mackay, Scottish actor and playwright (born 1922)

June 7 – Humberto Costantini, Argentinian writer (cancer, born 1924)

July 26 – Tawfiq al-Hakim, Egyptian novelist and dramatist (born 1898)

September 1 – Alan Reid ("Red Fox"), English-born Australian journalist (cancer, born 1914)

September 25 – Emlyn Williams, Welsh dramatist (born 1905)

September 30 – Alfred Bester, American science fiction writer (born 1913)

October 3 – Jean Anouilh, French dramatist (born 1910)

October 8 – Roger Lancelyn Green, English biographer and children's author (born 1918)

October 31 – Joseph Campbell, American author and mythology expert (born 1904)

November 29 – Gwendolyn MacEwen, Canadian poet (alcohol-related, born 1941)

December 1 – James Baldwin, African American novelist (stomach cancer, born 1924)

December 17 – Marguerite Yourcenar, French novelist and essayist (born 1903)

Awards

Nobel Prize for Literature: Joseph Brodsky

Australia

The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Jim Sakkas, Ilias

C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Lily Brett, The Auschwitz Poems

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Philip Hodgins, Blood and Bone

Mary Gilmore Prize: Jan Owen, Boy with Telescope

Miles Franklin Award: Glenda Adams, Dancing on Coral

Canada

See 1987 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

Prix Goncourt: Tahar ben Jelloun, La Nuit sacrée

Prix Médicis French: Pierre Mertens, Les Éblouissements

Prix Médicis International: Antonio Tabucchi, Indian Nocturne

United Kingdom

Booker Prize: Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger

Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Susan Price, The Ghost Drum

Cholmondeley Award: Wendy Cope, Matthew Sweeney, George Szirtes

Eric Gregory Award: Peter McDonald, Maura Dooley, Stephen Knight, Steve Anthony, Jill Maughan, Paul Munden

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: George Mackay Brown, The Golden Bird: Two Orkney Stories

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Ruth Dudley Edwards, Victor Gollancz: A Biography

Whitbread Best Book Award: Christopher Nolan, Under the Eye of the Clock

Sunday Express Book of the Year: Brian Moore, The Colour of Blood

United States

Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: David Rivard, Torque

Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Howard Nemerov

American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Belles Lettres: Jacques Barzun

Frost Medal: Robert Creeley / Sterling Brown

National Book Critics Circle Award: to The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes

National Book Award for Fiction: to Paco's Story by Larry Heinemann

Nebula Award: Pat Murphy, The Falling Woman

Newbery Medal for children's literature: Sid Fleischman The Whipping Boy

PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: to Soldiers in Hiding by Richard Wiley

Pulitzer Prize for Drama: August Wilson, Fences

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Peter Taylor, A Summons to Memphis

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Rita Dove, Thomas and Beulah

Whiting Awards:

Fiction: Joan Chase, Pam Durban, Deborah Eisenberg, Alice McDermott, David Foster WallacePoetry: Mark Cox, Michael RyanNonfiction: Mindy Aloff, Gretel EhrlichPlays: Reinaldo Povod

Elsewhere

Europe Theatre Prize: Ariane Mnouchkine, Théâtre du Soleil

Premio Nadal: Juan José Saer, La ocasión