# 1981 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1981.

## Events

* May 31 – The burning of Jaffna Public Library in Sri Lanka is begun by a mob of police and government-sponsored paramilitaries. They destroy over 97,000 volumes in one of the worst examples of ethnic book burning in the modern era.
* August – Sefer ve Sefel opens as an English used bookstore in Jerusalem.
* unknown dates
** John Gardner successfully revives the James Bond novel series originated by Ian Fleming with Licence Renewed (not counting a faux biography of Bond and a pair of film novelizations, the first original Bond novel since 1968's Colonel Sun). The revived Bond book series will run uninterrupted until 2002.
** Colin MacCabe is denied tenure at the University of Cambridge, apparently because of a dispute within the English Faculty about the teaching of structuralism.
** The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is given for the first time.

## New books
### Fiction

* Eric Ambler – The Care of Time
* Kingsley Amis (ed.) – The Golden Age of Science Fiction
* Martin Amis – Other People
* V. C. Andrews – If There Be Thorns
* Louis Auchincloss – The Cat and the King
* René Barjavel – Une rose au paradis
* Samuel Beckett – Ill Seen Ill Said
* Thomas Berger – Reinhart's Women
* Pierre Berton – Flames Across the Border
* William Boyd – A Good Man in Africa
* Pascal Bruckner – Evil Angels
* William S. Burroughs – Cities of the Red Night
* Robert Olen Butler – The Alleys of Eden
* Peter Carey – Bliss
* Raymond Carver – What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
* David Case – The Third Grave
* James Clavell – Noble House
* Bernard Cornwell
** Sharpe's Eagle
** Sharpe's Gold
* John Crowley – Little, Big
* L. Sprague de Camp – The Hand of Zei
* L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp – Footprints on Sand
* Régine Deforges – La Bicyclette bleue (The Blue Bicycle)
* Samuel R. Delany – Distant Star
* Michel Déon – Where Are You Dying Tonight? (Un déjeuner de soleil)
* Cynthia Freeman – No Time for Tears
* Gabriel García Márquez – Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Crónica de una muerte anunciada)
* John Gardner – Licence Renewed
* Charles L. Grant – Tales from the Nightside
* Alasdair Gray – Lanark
* Jan Guillou – Ondskan
* Thomas Harris – Red Dragon
* Frank Herbert – God Emperor of Dune
* Douglas Hill – Planet of the Warlord
* Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp – The Flame Knife
* John Irving – The Hotel New Hampshire
* Rona Jaffe – Mazes and Monsters
* Alan Judd – A Breed of Heroes
* Ismail Kadare – The File on H (Dosja J)
* Stephen King – Cujo
* Dean Koontz (as Leigh Nichols) – The Eyes of Darkness
* Chart Korbjitti – Khamphiphaksa (The Judgment)
* Joe R. Lansdale – Act of Love
* Stanisław Lem – Golem XIV
* Colleen McCullough – An Indecent Obsession
* Elliot S! Maggin – Miracle Monday
* Naguib Mahfouz – Arabian Nights and Days (ليالي ألف ليلة)
* Ian McEwan – The Comfort of Strangers
* Toni Morrison – Tar Baby
* Robert B. Parker
** A Savage Place
** Early Autumn
* Ellis Peters
** Saint Peter's Fair
** The Leper of Saint Giles
* Terry Pratchett – Strata
* Bano Qudsia – Raja Gidh ("King Vulture")
* Alain Robbe-Grillet – Djinn
* Harold Robbins – Goodbye, Janette
* Salman Rushdie – Midnight's Children
* Lawrence Sanders – The Third Deadly Sin
* Martin Cruz Smith – Gorky Park
* Muriel Spark – Loitering with Intent
* Botho Strauß – Couples, Passersby (Paare, Passanten) (stories)
* Paul Theroux – The Mosquito Coast
* D. M. Thomas – The White Hotel
* John Updike – Rabbit Is Rich
* Jack Vance – The Book of Dreams
* Gore Vidal – Creation
* Joseph Wambaugh – The Glitter Dome
* Kit Williams – Masquerade
* Gene Wolfe
** The Claw of the Conciliator
** The Sword of the Lictor
* Roger Zelazny
** The Changing Land
** Madwand

### Children and young people

* Chris Van Allsburg – Jumanji
* Hans Christian Andersen (with Jane S. Woodward and Michael Hague) – Michael Hague's Favourite Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales
* Judy Blume – Tiger Eyes
* Beverly Cleary – Ramona Quimby, Age 8
* Eth Clifford – The Dastardly Murder of Dirty Pete
* Roald Dahl – George's Marvellous Medicine
* Rumer Godden – The Dragon of Og
* Roger Hargreaves – Little Miss (first 13 books in the Little Miss series of 21)
* Florence Parry Heide – Treehorn's Treasure
* Harold Lamb (with George Barr and Alicia Austin) – Durandal
* Michael de Larrabeiti – The Borribles Go for Broke
* Janet Lunn – The Root Cellar
* Patricia Lynch – The Turf-Cutter's Donkey
* Michelle Magorian – Goodnight Mister Tom
* C. L. Moore (with Alicia Austin) - Scarlet Dream
* Uri Orlev – The Island on Bird Street (האי ברחוב הציפורים)
* Ruth Park – The Muddle-Headed Wombat is Very Bad
* Bill Peet – Encore for Eleanor
* Alvin Schwartz – Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
* Maurice Sendak – Outside Over There
* Jan Wahl – The Cucumber Princess
* Robert Westall – The Scarecrows

### Drama

* Samuel Beckett – Rockaby
* Edward Bond – Restoration
* Tankred Dorst – Merlin oder das wüste Land
* John Krizanc – Tamara
* Larry Shue – The Nerd
* Barney Simon – Woza Albert!
* Botho Strauß – Kalldewey, Farce
* Patrick Süskind – Der Kontrabaß
* Peter Whelan – The Accrington Pals
* Tennessee Williams – The Notebook of Trigorin

### Poetry

* L. Sprague de Camp – Heroes and Hobgoblins
* Mehr Lal Soni Zia Fatehabadi – Rang-o-Noor (The Colour and the Light)
* Norman Nicholson – Sea to the West
* Sylvia Plath (posthumous) – Collected Poems, edited by Ted Hughes
* Kathleen Raine – Collected Poems, 1935–1980
* Richard L. Tierney – Collected Poems

### Non-fiction

* Maya Angelou – The Heart of a Woman
* Colin Robert Chase – The Dating of Beowulf
* Mary Chesnut – Mary Chesnut's Civil War
* Hugo Brandt Corstius – Opperlandse taal- & letterkunde
* Daniel Dennett – Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology
* Nancy Dorian – Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect
* Timothy Findley – Famous Last Words
* Stephen Jay Gould – The Mismeasure of Man
* Dumas Malone – The Sage of Monticello
* V. S. Naipaul – Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey
* Giovanni Pettinato – The Archives of Ebla: An Empire Inscribed in Clay
* Anne Scott-James – The Cottage Garden
* Viktor Suvorov – The Liberators

## Births

* Jan 4 – Sarah Crossan, Irish young-adult writer
* April 7 – Lili Wilkinson, Australian young-adult writer
* May 19 – Kiera Cass, American young-adult writer
* May 20 – Ottessa Moshfegh, American novelist
* June 10 – Juno Dawson, born James Dawson, English young-adult LGBT writer
* July 10 – Karen Russell, American novelist
* July 27 – Dan Jones, British historian and TV presenter
* September 30 – Cecelia Ahern, Irish novelist
* October 3 – Leïla Slimani, Franco-Moroccan novelist
* October 12 – NoViolet Bulawayo (Elizabeth Zandile Tshele), Zimbabwe-born novelist
* October 31 – Irina Denezhkina, Russian writer
* December 11 – Hamish Blake, Australian comedian, actor and author
* December 13 – Mathis Bailey, American-Canadian novelist and fiction writer
* unknown dates
** Amy Sackville, English novelist
** Sunjeev Sahota, English novelist
** Saud Alsanousi, Kuwaiti novelist
** Olesya Mamchich, Ukrainian poet and children's writer

## Deaths

* January 5 – Lanza del Vasto, Italian-born philosopher, poet and activist (born 1901)
* January 6 – A. J. Cronin, Scottish novelist (born 1896)
* January 7 – John Pascal, American playwright, screenwriter, author and journalist (born 1932)
* January 23 – Lobsang Rampa (Cyril Henry Hoskin), English author (born 1910)
* February 3 – Normand Poirier, American newspaper editor, journalist and essayist (born 1928)
* February 17 – David Garnett, English novelist (born 1892)
* February 23 – Nan Shepherd, Scottish novelist and poet (born 1893)
* March 7 – Bosley Crowther, American film critic (born 1905)
* March 14 – Eleanor Perry, American screenwriter and author (born 1914)
* March 20 – Pedro García Cabrera, Spanish poet (born 1905)
* March 29 – Clive Sansom, English-born Tasmanian poet and playwright (born 1910)
* March 31 – Enid Bagnold, English writer and playwright (born 1889)
* April 1 – D. F. Jones, English science fiction writer (born 1918)
* April 13 – Gwyn Thomas, Welsh novelist and broadcaster (born 1913)
* April 23 – Josep Pla, Catalan Spanish journalist and writer (born 1897)
* April 26 – Robert Garioch, Scottish poet (born 1909)
* May 8 – Uri Zvi Grinberg, Israeli poet writing in Hebrew and Yiddish (born 1896)
* May 9 – Nelson Algren, American novelist (born 1909)
* May 18 – William Saroyan, American novelist and dramatist (born 1908)
* May 23 – Rayner Heppenstall, English writer and poet (born 1911)
* May 30 – Gwendolyn B. Bennett, African-American writer and artist (born 1902)
* June 15 – Philip Toynbee, English novelist and journalist (born 1916)
* June 17 – Zerna Sharp, American writer and educator (born 1889)
* June 18 – Pamela Hansford Johnson, English poet, novelist, playwright, literary and social critic (born 1912)
* August 15 – Carol Ryrie Brink, American author (born 1895)
* September 3 – Alec Waugh, English novelist (born 1898)
* September 7 – Christy Brown, Irish writer and painter (born 1932)
* September 12 – Eugenio Montale, Italian poet (born 1896)
* October 20 – Mary Coyle Chase, American playwright (born 1906)
* October 25 – Cynthia Harnett, English children's writer (born 1893)
* October 30 – Denys Rhodes, English novelist (born 1919)
* November 6 – Digby George Gerahty, English novelist (born 1898)
* November 30 – Charles Eric Maine, English science fiction writer (born 1921)
* December 9 – C. P. Taylor, Scottish playwright (born 1929)
* December 26 – Amber Reeves, New Zealand-born English scholar, feminist and novelist (born 1887)

## Awards

* Nobel Prize for Literature: Elias Canetti

### Australia

* The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Chris Matthews, Al Jazzar; Tim Winton, An Open Swimmer
* Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Alan Gould, Astral Sea
* Miles Franklin Award: Peter Carey, Bliss

### Canada

* See 1981 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

### France

* Prix Goncourt: Lucien Bodard, Anne Marie
* Prix Médicis French: François-Olivier Rousseau, L'Enfant d'Édouard
* Prix Médicis International: David Shahar, Le Jour de la comtesse

### Spain

* Miguel de Cervantes Prize: Octavio Paz

### United Kingdom

* Booker Prize: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children
* Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Robert Westall, The Scarecrows
* Cholmondeley Award: Roy Fisher, Robert Garioch, Charles Boyle
* Eric Gregory Award: Alan Jenkins, Simon Rae, Marion Lomax, Philip Gross, Kathleen Jamie, Mark Abley, Roger Crowley, Ian Gregson
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children, and Paul Theroux, The Mosquito Coast
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Victoria Glendinning, Edith Sitwell: Unicorn Among Lions
* Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: D. J. Enright
* Whitbread Best Book Award: William Boyd, A Good Man in Africa

### United States

* Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Kathy Calloway, Heart of the Garfish
* American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Belles Lettres: Malcolm Cowley
* Dos Passos Prize: Gilbert Sorrentino
* Nebula Award: Gene Wolfe, The Claw of the Conciliator
* Newbery Medal for children's literature: Katherine Paterson, Jacob Have I Loved
* Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Beth Henley, Crimes of the Heart
* Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: John Kennedy Toole – A Confederacy of Dunces
* Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: James Schuyler: The Morning of the Poem

### Elsewhere

* Hugo Award for Best Novel: The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge
* Premio Nadal: Carmen Gómez Ojea, Cantiga de aguero
* 1980s portal
* Literature portal