# 1985 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1985.

## Events

* February 25 – Sue Limb's parodic pastiche of the Lake Poets, The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere, begins broadcasting on BBC Radio 4 in the U.K.
* March 1 – The GNU Manifesto by Richard Stallman is published for the first time, and becomes a fundamental philosophical source within the free software movement.
* August 11 – A memorial to the poet Hugh MacDiarmid is unveiled near his home at Langholm, Scotland.
* unknown dates – Three notable novels in English by female authors are published during the year: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Jilly Cooper's Riders, the first of the Rutshire Chronicles, and Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.

## New books
### Fiction

* Isaac Asimov – Robots and Empire
* Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid's Tale
* Jean M. Auel – The Mammoth Hunters
* Iain Banks – Walking on Glass
* Clive Barker
** Books of Blood
** The Damnation Game
* Greg Bear
** Blood Music
** Eon
* M. C. Beaton – Death of a Gossip
* Thomas Bernhard – Old Masters: a comedy (Alte Meister: Komödie)
* Anthony Burgess – The Kingdom of the Wicked
* Orson Scott Card – Ender's Game
* Jilly Cooper – Riders
* Bernard Cornwell – Sharpe's Honour
* Don DeLillo – White Noise
* Friedrich Dürrenmatt – The Execution of Justice (Justiz)
* Bret Easton Ellis – Less than Zero
* Steve Erickson – Days Between Stations
* John Fowles – A Maggot
* Carlos Fuentes – The Old Gringo (Gringo Viejo)
* William Gaddis – Carpenter's Gothic
* Gabriel García Márquez – Love in the Time of Cholera (El amor en los tiempos del cólera)
* Jane Gardam – Crusoe's Daughter
* Alasdair Gray – The Fall of Kelvin Walker: A Fable of the Sixties
* Graham Greene – The Tenth Man
* Amy Hempel – Reasons to Live
* Frank Herbert – Chapterhouse: Dune
* John Irving – The Cider House Rules
* Garrison Keillor – Lake Wobegon Days
* Stephen King – Skeleton Crew
* László Krasznahorkai – Satantango
* Derek Lambert – The Man Who Was Saturday
* Ursula K. Le Guin – Always Coming Home
* Doris Lessing – The Good Terrorist
* H. P. Lovecraft
** At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels
** The Dunwich Horror and Others (corrected edition)
* Richard A. Lupoff – Lovecraft's Book
* Cormac McCarthy – Blood Meridian
* Larry McMurtry – Lonesome Dove
* John D. MacDonald – The Lonely Silver Rain
* James A. Michener – Texas
* Brian Moore – Black Robe
* Bharati Mukherjee – Darkness (short stories)
* Iris Murdoch – The Good Apprentice
* Orhan Pamuk – The White Castle (Beyaz Kale)
* Ellis Peters – An Excellent Mystery
* Caryl Phillips – The Final Passage
* Peter Pohl – Johnny, My Friend (Janne, min vän)
* Guy Rewenig – Hannert dem Atlantik (first novel in the Luxembourgish language)
* Carl Sagan – Contact
* Nava Semel – Kova Zekhukhit (Hat of Glass, short stories)
* Sidney Sheldon – If Tomorrow Comes
* Patrick Süskind – Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
* Sue Townsend – Rebuilding Coventry
* Anne Tyler – The Accidental Tourist
* Andrew Vachss – Flood
* Kurt Vonnegut – Galápagos
* Jeanette Winterson – Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
* Roger Zelazny – Trumps of Doom

### Children and young people

* Chester Aaron – Out of Sight, Out of Mind
* Pamela Allen – A Lion in the Night
* Chris Van Allsburg – The Polar Express
* Frank Asch – I Can Blink
* Kirsten Boie – Paule ist ein Glücksgriff
* Robert Cormier – Beyond the Chocolate War
* Roald Dahl – The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me
* Virginia Hamilton (with Leo and Diane Dillon) – The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales
* Gordon Korman - Don't Care High
* Patricia MacLachlan – Sarah, Plain and Tall
* Laura Numeroff – If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
* Pat O'Shea – The Hounds of the Morrigan
* Bill Peet – The Kweeks of Kookatumdee
* Cynthia Rylant – A Blue-Eyed Daisy
* Jacqueline Wilson – How to Survive Summer Camp (novel)
* Elizabeth Winthrop – The Castle in the Attic

### Drama

* Peter Brook and Jean-Claude Carrière (adapted) – Mahabharata
* Christopher Hampton (adapted) – Les Liaisons Dangereuses
* David Hare and Howard Brenton – Pravda
* Larry Kramer – The Normal Heart
* Wallace Shawn – Aunt Dan and Lemon
* Sam Shepard – A Lie of the Mind
* Neil Simon – Biloxi Blues
* August Wilson – Fences

### Poetry

* Carol Ann Duffy – Standing Female Nude

### Non-fiction

* Bill Bryson – The Palace under the Alps and Over 200 Other Unusual, Unspoiled and Infrequently Visited Spots in 16 European Countries
* Roger Caron – Bingo! The Horrifying Eyewitness Account of a Prison Riot
* Allen Carr – The Easy Way to Stop Smoking
* Timothy J. Cooney - Telling Right From Wrong
* Michael Denton – Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
* Elaine Dundy – Elvis and Gladys
* Julien Gracq – The Shape of a City
* G. L. Harriss (editor) – Henry V: The Practice of Kingship
* Ernest Hemingway – The Dangerous Summer
* Pauline Kael – State of the Art
* David Lowenthal – The Past Is a Foreign Country
* Walter A. McDougall – ...The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age
* Tim O'Brien – The Nuclear Age
* Priscilla Beaulieu Presley – Elvis and Me
* David Robinson – Chaplin: His Life and Art
* Oliver Sacks – The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
* Roger Scruton – Thinkers of the New Left
* Gary Soto – Living Up the Street
* Crawford Young and Thomas Turner – The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State

## Births

* February 7 - Justina Ireland, American science-fiction and fantasy author of young-adult fiction
* April 24 – Alexander Zeldin, British playwright and director
* September 24 – Eleanor Catton, New Zealand novelist
* September 30 – Téa Obreht, Yugoslav-born American novelist writing in English

## Deaths

* January 1 – Sigerson Clifford, Irish poet, playwright, and civil servant (born 1913)
* January 5 – Alexis Rannit, Estonian-born American poet and critic (born 1914)
* February 6 – James Hadley Chase, English thriller novelist (born 1906)
* February 19 – Carl Joachim Hambro, Norwegian novelist, essayist and philologist (born 1914)
* March 15 – Radha Krishna Choudhary, Indian historian and philosopher (born 1921)
* April 4 – Kate Roberts, Welsh writer (born 1891)
* April 7 – Carl Schmitt, German political theorist (born 1888)
* April 17
** Basil Bunting, English poet (born 1900)
** D. I. Suchianu, Romanian essayist, translator, social scientist and film theorist (born 1895)
* April 25 – Uku Masing, Estonian religious philosopher, linguist and writer (born 1909)
* May 1 – Denise Robins, English romantic novelist (born 1897)
* May 12 – Josephine Miles, American poet and literary critic (born 1911)
* May 18 – Hedley Bull, Australian economist (cancer, born 1932)
* May 25 – Robert Nathan, American novelist and poet (born 1894)
* June 8 – Hu Feng (胡风), Chinese novelist (born 1902)
* June 16 – Ernst Orvil, Norwegian novelist, poet and playwright (born 1898)
* July 16 – Heinrich Böll, German novelist, Nobel laureate (born 1917)
* July 8 – Leslie Paul, Anglo-Irish novelist (born 1905)
* July 29 – Judah Waten, Australian novelist (born 1911)
* August 14 – Alfred Hayes, English-born American novelist, poet and screenwriter (born 1911)
* August 30 – (Janet) Taylor Caldwell, English-born American novelist (born 1900)
* September 1 – Saunders Lewis, Welsh writer and broadcaster (Plaid Cymru) (born 1893)
* September 17 – Fran Ross, African American satirist (born 1935)
* September 22 – D. J. Opperman, South African Afrikaans poet (born 1914)
* September 27 – Leonard Gribble, English novelist (born 1908)
* October 1 – E. B. White, American children's writer and writer on style (born 1899)
* October 11 – Alex La Guma, South African novelist and political activist (born 1925)
* October 24 – László Bíró, Hungarian journalist and inventor (born 1899)
* October 31 – Nikos Engonopoulos, Greek poet (born 1903)
* November 3 – J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, English historian (born 1916)
* November 4 – Hilda Vaughan, Welsh novelist and short story writer (born 1892)
* November 6 – Sara Woods, British crime fiction writer (born 1922)
* November 11 – James Hanley, English-born novelist and dramatist of Irish extraction (born 1897)
* November 25
** Geoffrey Grigson, English poet and critic (born 1905)
** Elsa Morante, Italian novelist (born 1912)
* November 27 – Fernand Braudel, French historian (born 1902)
* December 2 – Philip Larkin, English poet (born 1922)
* December 5 – Mihail Celarianu, Romanian poet and novelist (born 1893)
* December 7 – Robert Graves, English novelist, poet and critic (born 1895)

## Awards

* Nobel Prize for Literature: Claude Simon

### Australia

* The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: no award given out this year
* C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Kevin Hart, Your Shadow; Rosemary Dobson, The Three Fates
* Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, Kevin Hart, Your Shadow
* Mary Gilmore Prize: Doris Brett, The Truth about Unicorns
* Miles Franklin Award: Christopher Koch, The Doubleman

### Canada

* See 1985 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

### France

* Prix Goncourt: Yann Queffélec, Les Noces barbares
* Prix Médicis French: Michel Braudeau, Naissance d'une passion
* Prix Médicis International: Joseph Heller, God Knows

### Spain

* Miguel de Cervantes Prize: Gonzalo Torrente Ballester

### United Kingdom

* Booker Prize: Keri Hulme, The Bone People
* Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Kevin Crossley-Holland, Storm
* Cholmondeley Award: Dannie Abse, Peter Redgrove, Brian Taylor
* Eric Gregory Award: Graham Mort, Adam Thorpe, Pippa Little, James Harpur, Simon North, Julian May
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Robert Edric, Winter Garden
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: David Nokes, Jonathan Swift: A Hypocrite Reversed
* Newdigate Prize: Robert Twigger
* Whitbread Best Book Award: Douglas Dunn, Elegies

### United States

* Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Liz Rosenberg, The Fire Music
* American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Poetry, Robert Penn Warren
* Frost Medal: Robert Penn Warren
* Nebula Award: Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
* Newbery Medal for children's literature: Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown
* Pulitzer Prize for Drama: James Lapine for book; Stephen Sondheim for music and lyrics, Sunday in the Park With George
* Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Alison Lurie – Foreign Affairs
* Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Carolyn Kizer: Yin
* Whiting Awards (inaugural year):
    Fiction: Raymond Abbott, Stuart Dybek, Wright Morris (fiction/nonfiction), Howard Norman, James Robison, Austin Wright (fiction/nonfiction)
    Poetry: Douglas Crase, Jorie Graham, Linda Gregg, James Schuyler

### Elsewhere

* Premio Nadal: Pau Faner Coll – Flor de sal