1991 in literature

Updated on Dec 07, 2024

Edit

Comment

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1991.

Events

February – Sisters Vanessa Redgrave (Olga) and Lynn Redgrave (Masha) make their first and only joint appearance on stage, with niece Jemma Redgrave as Irina, in the title rôles of Chekhov's Three Sisters at the Queen's Theatre, London.

July 11 – The Satanic Verses controversy: Hitoshi Igarashi (born 1947), Japanese translator of Salman Rushdie's 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, is stabbed to death at the University of Tsukuba in accordance with the fatwa against those involved in circulating the book.

October – Irvine Welsh's first published fiction, the short story "The First Day of the Edinbugh Festival", later incorporated into Trainspotting, appears in New Writing Scotland.

November 4 – An archaeological expedition is launched, eventually resulting in the discovery of a mass grave and identification of the body of novelist Alain-Fournier, 77 years after his death in World War I. His bones are interred at Saint-Remy-la-Calonne.

Fiction

Martin Amis – Time's Arrow: or the Nature of the Offence

Piers Anthony – Tatham Mound, Question Quest, Virtual Mode

Jeffrey Archer – As the Crow Flies

Beryl Bainbridge – The Birthday Boys

Clive Barker – Imajica

Pat Barker – Regeneration

Julian Barnes – Talking It Over

Louis Begley – Wartime Lies

Louis de Bernières – Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord

A. S. Byatt – Possession: A Romance

Agatha Christie (d. 1976) – Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories

Tom Clancy – The Sum of All Fears

Mary Higgins Clark – Loves Music, Loves to Dance

Hugh Cook – The Werewolf and the Wormlord

Paul Cornell – Timewyrm: Revelation

Bernard Cornwell – Stormchild

Douglas Coupland – Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture

L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp – The Pixilated Peeress

Don DeLillo – Mao II

Terrance Dicks – Timewyrm: Exodus

Assia Djebar – Far from Medina (Loin de Médine)

Stephen R. Donaldson

The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story

The Gap into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge

Roddy Doyle – The Van

Kaori Ekuni (江國香織) – Kirakira Hikaru (Twinkle, Twinkle)

Bret Easton Ellis – American Psycho

Stephen Fry – The Liar

Diana Gabaldon – Outlander

John Gardner – The Man from Barbarossa

David Gates – Jernigan

Ann Granger – Say It With Poison

John Grisham – The Firm

Josephine Hart – Damage

Elisabeth Harvor – Our Lady of All Distances (11 stories; revision of Women and Children, 1973)

Mark Jacobson – Gojiro

Stephen King – Needful Things

John le Carré – The Secret Pilgrim

Penelope Lively – City of the Mind

Morgan Llywelyn – Druids

James A. Michener – Mexico

Rohinton Mistry – Such a Long Journey

Timothy Mo – The Redundancy of Courage

Cees Nooteboom – The Following Story

Leonardo Padura Fuentes – Pasado perfecto (translated as Havana Blue)

John Peel – Timewyrm: Genesys

Tito Perdue – Lee

Ellis Peters – The Summer of the Danes

Marge Piercy – He, She and It

Terry Pratchett – Reaper Man and Witches Abroad

Jean Raspail – Sire

Alexandra Ripley – Scarlett

J. Jill Robinson – Saltwater Trees

Nigel Robinson – Timewyrm: Apocalypse

Bernice Rubens – A Solitary Grief

Norman Rush – Mating

José Saramago – The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo)

Michael Shaara (posthumous) – For Love of the Game

Sidney Sheldon – The Doomsday Conspiracy

Jane Smiley – A Thousand Acres

Danielle Steel – Heartbeat

James born Stewart – Den of Thieves

Michael Swanwick – Gravity's Angels

Antonio Tabucchi – Requiem: A Hallucination

Amy Tan – The Kitchen God's Wife

Andrew Vachss – Sacrifice

Bernard Werber – Empire of the Ants (Les Fourmis)

Tim Winton – Cloudstreet

Helen Zahavi – Dirty Weekend

Timothy Zahn – Heir to the Empire

Haifa Zangana – Through the Vast Halls of Memory

Roger Zelazny – Prince of Chaos

Avi – Nothing But the Truth

G. Clifton Wisler – Red Cap

Children and young people

Chris Van Allsburg - The Wretched Stone

Berlie Doherty – Dear Nobody

Sarah Ellis – Pick-Up Sticks

Jostein Gaarder – Sophie's World (Sofies verden, English translation 1995)

Sonia Levitin - The Man Who Kept His Heart in a Bucket

Polly Robertus - The Dog Who Had Kittens

Manuel Toharia (with Willi Glasauer) - Momentos Estelares de la Ciencia (The Highlights of Science and its Greatest Scientists and Inventors)

Martin Waddell – Farmer Duck

Jacqueline Wilson – The Story of Tracy Beaker (first in the Tracy Beaker series of six books)

Drama

Ariel Dorfman – Death and the Maiden

Philip Ridley – The Pitchfork Disney

Neil Simon – Lost in Yonkers

Non-fiction

Dionne Brand – No Burden to Carry: Narratives of Black Working Women in Ontario

Henry Steele Commager – Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples

Dave Foreman – Confessions of an Eco-Warrior

Jung Chang (張戎) – Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

Robert Hart – Forest Gardening: Rediscovering Nature and Community in a Post-Industrial Age

Madonna – Sex

Robert K. Massie – Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War

P.J. O'Rourke – Parliament of Whores

Thomas Pakenham – The Scramble for Africa

William Pokhlyobkin – A History of Vodka

John Richardson – A Life of Picasso

Simon Schama – Dead Certainties

Marie Wadden – Nitassinan: The Innu Struggle to Reclaim Their Homeland

Naomi Wolf – The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women

Zhang Chengzhi – History of the Soul

Deaths

January 22 – Robert Choquette, Canadian novelist and poet (born 1905)

January 23 – Northrop Frye, Canadian literary critic (born 1912)

January 29 – Yasushi Inoue, Japanese novelist (born 1907)

February 24 – John Daly, American journalist and game show host (born 1914)

March – Paul Engle, American poet and novelist (born 1908)

March 14 – Margery Sharp, English novelist and children's writer (born 1905)

April 3 – Graham Greene, English novelist (born 1904)

April 4 – Max Frisch, Swiss playwright and novelist (born 1911)

April 12 – James Schuyler, American poet (born 1923)

April 15 – Dante Milano, Brazilian modernist poet (born 1899)

May 3 – Jerzy Kosinski, Polish-American novelist (born 1933; suicide)

May 31 – Angus Wilson, English novelist (born 1913)

June 24 – Sumner Locke Elliott, Australian-American author and playwright (born 1917)

July 24 – Isaac Bashevis Singer, Polish-born Jewish-American novelist (born 1902)

August 1 – Yusuf Idris, Egyptian writer (born 1927)

August 17 – Terence Kilmartin, Irish journalist and translator (born 1922)

September 4 – Peggy Ramsay, British theatrical agent (born 1908)

September 24 – Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel), American children's writer (born 1904)

September 27 – Roy Fuller, English poet (born 1912)

October 11 – Steven "Jesse" Bernstein, American performance poet (born 1950; suicide)

October 12 – Arkady Strugatsky, Russian science fiction writer (born 1925)

October 27 – George Barker, English poet (born 1913)

November 29 – Frank Yerby, African American historical novelist (born 1916)

Awards

Nobel Prize for Literature: Nadine Gordimer

Camões Prize: José Craveirinha

Australia

The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Andrew McGahan, Praise

C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Jennifer Maiden, The Winter Baby

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Jennifer Maiden, The Winter Baby

Mary Gilmore Prize: Jean Kent, Verandahs

Miles Franklin Award: David Malouf, The Great World

Canada

See 1991 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

The Edna Staebler Award is established to honour the best literary work of creative non-fiction by a Canadian author who'd published their first or second writing within the preceding year.

Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Susan Mayse, Ginger

Arthur Ellis Award for Best True Crime: Susan Mayse, Ginger