1990 in literature

Events

March – Anton Chekhov's play Three Sisters opens at the Gate Theatre in Dublin with locally-born Sinéad, Sorcha and Niamh Cusack in the title rôles and their father Cyril Cusack as Dr. Chebutykin.

c. June – Joanne Rowling has the idea for Harry Potter while on a train from Manchester to London: "I was staring out the window, and the idea for Harry just came. He appeared in my mind's eye, very fully formed. The basic idea was for a boy who didn't know what he was." She begins writing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which will be completed in 1995 and published in 1997.

October – Nicci Gerrard marries Sean French in the London Borough of Hackney, to make up a writing team known as Nicci French.

Austrian writer Ernest Bornemann is awarded the first Magnus Hirschfeld Medal for sexual research.

Fiction

Felipe Alfau – Chromos (completed 1948)

Iain M. Banks – Use of Weapons

Hoda Barakat – The Stone of Laughter (حجر الضحك)

Greg Bear – Heads and Queen of Angels

Thomas Berger – Orrie's Story

Louis de Bernières – The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts

William Boyd – Brazzaville Beach

Ray Bradbury – A Graveyard for Lunatics

John Bradshaw – Homecoming

Tom Clancy – Clear and Present Danger

Hugh Cook – The Wazir and the Witch and The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers

Bernard Cornwell – Sharpe's Waterloo and Crackdown

Michael Crichton – Jurassic Park

Jim Dodge – Stone Junction

Roddy Doyle – The Snapper

Dominick Dunne – An Inconvenient Woman

James Ellroy – L.A. Confidential

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett – Good Omens

John Kenneth Galbraith – A Tenured Professor

John Gardner – Brokenclaw

Elizabeth George – Well-Schooled in Murder

Andrew Greeley – The Cardinal Virtues

Elizabeth Jane Howard – The Light Years, first of the Cazalet series

Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter – The Conan Chronicles 2

Marsha Hunt – Joy

Monica Hughes – Invitation to the Game

P. D. James – Devices and Desires

Robert Jordan – The Eye of the World

Mitsuyo Kakuta (角田 光代) – Kōfuku na yūgi (A Blissful Pastime)

Imre Kertész – Kaddish for an Unborn Child (Kaddis a meg nem született gyermekért)

Stephen King – Four Past Midnight and The Stand

Hanif Kureishi – The Buddha of Suburbia

Joe R Lansdale – Savage Season

Elmore Leonard – Get Shorty

Robert Ludlum – The Bourne Ultimatum

Ian McEwan – The Innocent

Patrick McGrath – Spider

Brian Moore – Lies of Silence

Alice Munro – Friend of My Youth (short stories)

Bảo Ninh – The Sorrow of War (Nỗi buồn chiến tranh)

Tim O'Brien – The Things They Carried

Yōko Ogawa (小川 洋子) – Pregnancy Calendar (Ninshin karendaa, 妊娠 カレンダー)

Orhan Pamuk – The Black Book

Robert B. Parker – Stardust

Rosamund Pilcher – September

Belva Plain – Harvest

Terry Pratchett – Eric and Moving Pictures

Thomas Pynchon – Vineland

W. G. Sebald – Schwindel. Gefühle ("Vertigo")

Lucius Shepard – The Ends of the Earth

Danielle Steel – Message From Nam

James Tiptree, Jr. – Her Smoke Rose Up Forever

Scott Turow – The Burden of Proof

Andrew Vachss – Blossom

Kurt Vonnegut – Hocus Pocus

Harry L. Watson – Liberty and Power

Banana Yoshimoto – Amrita

Children and young people

Chris Van Allsburg - Just a Dream

Gillian Cross – Wolf

Rumer Godden – Fu-Dog

Jean Marzollo - Pretend You're a Cat

Salman Rushdie – Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Dr. Seuss – Oh, the Places You'll Go

Diane Stanley - Good Queen Bess: The Story of Elizabeth I of England

Jacqueline Wilson – Glubbslyme (fantasy novel)

Bill Peet - Cock-a-doodle Dudley

Terenci Moix (with Willi Glasauer) - Los Grandes Mitos del Cine|The Greatest Stories of Hollywood Cinema

Drama

Brian Friel – Dancing at Lughnasa

John Guare – Six Degrees of Separation

Girish Karnad – Taledanda (Kannada: ತಲೆದಂಡ, "Death by Beheading")

Peter Shaffer – Lettice and Lovage

Non-fiction

Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine – Last Chance to See

Judith Butler – Gender Trouble

Dougal Dixon – Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future

Ryszard Kapuscinski – The Soccer War

Michael Lynch – Scotland: A New History

Susan Mayse – Ginger: The Life and Death of Albert Goodwin

James A. Michener – Pilgrimage

V. S. Naipaul – India: A Million Mutinies Now

Raphael Patai – The Hebrew Goddess

Ronald Reagan – An American Life

Barry Siegel – A Death in White Bear Lake

Hans-Jürgen Syberberg – Vom Unglück und Glück der Kunst in Deutschland nach dem letzten Kriege

Poetry

Derek Walcott – Omeros

Deaths

February 27 – Alexandru Rosetti, Romanian linguist, editor and memoirist (burns, born 1895)

May 10 – Walker Percy, American novelist (born 1916)

May 25 – Lucy M. Boston, English children's novelist (born 1892)

July 22 – Manuel Puig, Argentine novelist (heart attack, born 1932)

August 25 – Morley Callaghan, Canadian novelist, playwright and broadcasting personality (born 1903)

September 26 – Alberto Moravia, Italian novelist and journalist (born 1907)

September 30 – Patrick White, Australian novelist (born 1912)

October 23 – Louis Althusser, French Marxist philosopher (heart attack, born 1918)

November 7 – Lawrence Durrell, English novelist, dramatist, and travel writer (born 1912)

November 8 – Anya Seton, American genre novelist (born 1904)

November 23 – Roald Dahl, Welsh-born children's author (myelodysplastic syndrome, born 1916

November 24 – Dodie Smith, English novelist and dramatist (born 1899)

December 7 – Reinaldo Arenas, Cuban poet, novelist, and playwright (suicide, born 1943

December 11 – David Turner, English dramatist (born 1927)

December 14 – Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Swiss dramatist (congestive heart failure, born 1921)

Unknown date

Clare Hoskyns-Abrahall, English biographer and children's writer (born 1900)

Awards

Nobel Prize for Literature: Octavio Paz

Europe Theatre Prize: Giorgio Strehler

Camões Prize: João Cabral de Melo Neto

Australia

The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Gillian Mears, The Mint Lawn

C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Robert Adamson, The Clean Dark

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Robert Adamson, The Clean Dark

Mary Gilmore Prize: Kristopher Rassemussen, In the Name of the Father

Miles Franklin Award: Tom Flood, Oceana Fine

Canada

See 1990 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

Prix Goncourt: Jean Rouaud, Les Champs d'honneur

Prix Décembre: François Maspero, Les Passagers du Roissy–Express

Prix Médicis French: Les Quartiers d'hiver – Jean-Noël Pancrazi

Prix Médicis International: Amitav Ghosh, Les feux du Bengale

United Kingdom

Booker Prize: A. S. Byatt, Possession: A Romance

Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Gillian Cross, Wolf

Cholmondeley Award: Kingsley Amis, Elaine Feinstein, Michael O'Neill

Eric Gregory Award: Nicholas Drake, Maggie Hannan, William Park, Jonathan Davidson, Lavinia Greenlaw, Don Paterson, John Wells

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: William Boyd, Brazzaville Beach

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Claire Tomalin, The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens

Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Sorley Maclean

Whitbread Best Book Award: Nicholas Mosley, Hopeful Monsters

The Sunday Express Book of the Year: J. M. Coetzee, Age of Iron

United States

Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Debra Allbery, Walking Distance

Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: W. S. Merwin

Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Christopher Logue, Kings

Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry: James Merrill, The Inner Room

Caldecott Award: Ed Young, Lon Po Po: A Red–Riding Hood Story from China

Compton Crook Award: Josepha Sherman, The Shining Falcon

Frost Medal: Denise Levertov / James Laughlin

Hugo Award for Best Novel: Dan Simmons for Hyperion

National Book Award for Fiction: Charles Johnson for Middle Passage

Nebula Award: Ursula K. Le Guin, Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea

Newbery Medal for children's literature: Lois Lowry, Number the Stars

Pulitzer Prize for Drama: August Wilson, The Piano Lesson

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Oscar Hijuelos for The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Charles Simic: The World Doesn't End

Whiting Awards:

Fiction: Yannick Murphy, Lawrence Naumoff, Mark Richard, Christopher Tilghman, Stephen Wright Nonfiction: Harriet Ritvo, Amy Wilentz Plays: Tony Kushner Poetry: Emily Hiestand, Dennis Nurkse

Elsewhere

Premio Nadal, Juan José Millás, La soledad era esto