# 1970 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1970.

## Events

* January 16 – The Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus opens with a performance of Georg Büchner's Dantons Tod.
* March – Magdalena Mouján's story "Gu ta Gutarrak" ("We and Ours") in Basque is suppressed by the authorities in Francoist Spain.
* June 10 – The English novelist Anthony Burgess delivers an inflammatory lecture, "Obscenity and the Arts", at the University of Malta; its reception leads to him leaving Malta. He has begun a novel that will become Earthly Powers (1980).
* June 17 – The première of David Storey's play Home at the Royal Court Theatre, London, is directed by Lindsay Anderson and stars Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson.
* August 21 – The Penguin Books paperback imprint is acquired by Pearson PLC, following the death of its owner Sir Allen Lane.
* August 27 – Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company introduces a revolutionary production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Peter Brook, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.
* November 20 – The playwright Fadil Paçrami becomes Chairman of the Parliament of Albania.
* November 25 – In Tokyo, the Japanese author and Tatenokai militia leader Yukio Mishima (三島由紀夫, 45) and others take over the headquarters of the Japan Self-Defense Forces in an attempted coup d'état. Mishima commits seppuku (public ritual suicide) when he fails to sway the public to his right-wing politics, which include restoring the powers of the Emperor.
* December 5 – Dario Fo premières his play Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Morte accidentale di un anarchico) at Varese in Italy.
* unknown dates
** Len Deighton's Bomber, set on June 31 [sic.] 1943, becomes the first published novel to have been written on a word processor, an IBM MT/ST.
** The novel Deliverance by the American poet James Dickey is published; it will go on to be named among the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by an editorial board of the American Modern Library.
** An unexpurgated edition of John Cleland's Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 1748–1749) appears in the U.K. without legal challenge.
** Bohumil Hrabal's books Domácí úkoly (Home Work) and Poupata (Buds) are suppressed by the communist authorities in Czechoslovakia.

## New books
### Fiction

* Dritëro Agolli – Komisari Memo (Commissar Memo)
* Poul Anderson – Tau Zero
* Abdelhamid ben Hadouga - The South Wind (novel)
* Thomas Berger – Vital Parts
* Thomas Bernhard – The Lime Works (Das Kalkwerk)
* Melvyn Bragg – A Place in England
* John Braine – Stay with Me Till Morning
* Wallace Breem – Eagle in the Snow
* Jimmy Breslin – The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight
* Agatha Christie – Passenger to Frankfurt
* Robertson Davies – Fifth Business
* L. Sprague de Camp
** The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales
** Warlocks and Warriors (ed.)
* Samuel R. Delany – The Fall of the Towers (trilogy)
* Michel Déon – Les Poneys sauvages
* James Dickey – Deliverance
* Joan Didion – Play It as It Lays
* José Donoso – The Obscene Bird of Night (El obsceno pájaro de la noche)
* Lawrence Durrell – Nunquam
* Vincent Eri – The Crocodile
* Nuruddin Farah – From a Crooked Rib
* J. G. Farrell – Troubles
* Juan Goytisolo – Count Julian (Reivindicación del conde don Julián)
* Pierre Guyotat - Eden, Eden, Eden (Éden, Éden, Éden)
* L. P. Hartley – My Sisters' Keeper
* Anne Hébert – Kamouraska
* Ernest Hemingway – Islands in the Stream
* Susan Hill – I'm the King of the Castle
* Pamela Hansford Johnson – The Honours Board
* Anna Kavan – Julia and the Bazooka
* Jaan Kross – Between Three Plagues (part 1)
* Halldór Laxness – Innansveitarkronika
* Ira Levin – This Perfect Day
* Mario Levrero – La ciudad
* H. P. Lovecraft – The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions
* Peter Lovesey – Wobble to Death
* John D. MacDonald – The Long Lavender Look
* Eric Malpass – Oh My Darling Daughter
* Ngaio Marsh – When in Rome
* Yukio Mishima (三島由紀夫) – The Decay of the Angel (天人五衰, Tennin Gosui; last in The Sea of Fertility tetralogy)
* Brian Moore – Fergus
* Toni Morrison – The Bluest Eye
* Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk – Harpoon of the Hunter (ᐊᖑᓇᓱᑦᑎᐅᑉ ᓇᐅᒃᑯᑎᖓ)
* Larry Niven – Ringworld
* John Jay Osborn, Jr. – The Paper Chase
* Abel Posse – Los bogavantes
* Mary Renault – Fire from Heaven
* Kurban Said – Ali and Nino
* Erich Segal – Love Story
* Sidney Sheldon – The Naked Face
* Clark Ashton Smith – Other Dimensions
* Manuel Scorza – Drums for Rancas
* Muriel Spark – The Driver's Seat
* Mary Stewart – The Crystal Cave
* Alan Sillitoe – A Start in Life
* Leon Uris – QB VII
* Jack Vance – The Pnume
* Gore Vidal – Two Sisters
* Patrick White – The Vivisector
* Venedikt Yerofeyev – Moscow-Petushki (Moscow to the End of the Line; samizdat publication)
* Roger Zelazny – Nine Princes in Amber

### Children and young people

* Lloyd Alexander – The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian
* Rev. W. Awdry – Duke the lost Engine (twenty-fifth in The Railway Series of 42 books by him and his son Christopher Awdry)
* Richard Bach – Jonathan Livingston Seagull
* Nina Bawden – The Birds on the Trees
* Judy Blume – Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret
* John Burningham – Mr Gumpy's Outing
* Betsy Byars – Summer of the Swans
* John Christopher (Sam Youd) – The Guardians (science fiction)
* Roald Dahl – Fantastic Mr Fox
* Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen – The God Beneath the Sea
* Judith Kerr – Mog the Forgetful Cat (first in the Mog series of 17 books)
* Ruth Manning-Sanders – A Book of Devils and Demons
* Dr. Seuss – Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?
* Ruth Park
** The Muddle-Headed Wombat in the Springtime
** The Muddle-Headed Wombat on the River
* Bill Peet
** The Whingdingdilly
** The Wump World
* Maurice Sendak – In the Night Kitchen
* Isaac Bashevis Singer – A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw
* E. B. White – The Trumpet Of The Swan
* Annette Tison and Talus Taylor - Barbapapa

### Drama

* Ama Ata Aidoo – Anowa
* Robert Bolt – Vivat! Vivat Regina!
* Dario Fo – Accidental Death of an Anarchist
* Michael Frayn – The Two of Us (4 1-act plays)
* Trevor Griffiths – Occupations
* Christopher Hampton – The Philanthropist
* Lorraine Hansberry – Les Blancs
* Welcome Msomi – uMabatha
* Terence Rattigan – A Bequest to the Nation
* Anthony Shaffer – Sleuth
* Alexander Vampilov – Duck Hunting (Утиная охота, Utinaya okhota, published; first performed 1976)
* Derek Walcott – Dream on Monkey Mountain

### Poetry

* L. Sprague de Camp – Demons and Dinosaurs
* Ted Hughes – Crow

### Non-fiction

* Theodor W. Adorno (posthumously) – Aesthetic Theory (Asthetische Theorie)
* Hannah Arendt – On Violence
* Roland Barthes – S/Z
* Pierre Berton – The National Dream
* Jim Bouton – Ball Four
* Dee Brown – Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
* James MacGregor Burns – Roosevelt: The Soldier Of Freedom
* Henri Charrière – Papillon
* Elizabeth David – Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen
* Edward De Bono – Lateral Thinking: creativity step by step
* August Derleth – Thirty Years of Arkham House, 1939-1969: A History and Bibliography
* Michel Foucault – Les Mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines (The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences)
* Germaine Greer – The Female Eunuch
* Helene Hanff – 84 Charing Cross Road
* Arthur Janov – The Primal Scream
* Uwe Johnson – Anniversaries. From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl (Jahrestage: Aus dem Leben von Gesine Cresspahl; begins publication)
* Hal Lindsey – The Late Great Planet Earth
* Christopher Lloyd – The Well-Tempered Garden
* Norman Mailer – Of a Fire on the Moon
* Dumas Malone – Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801-1805
* Mahathir Mohamad – The Malay Dilemma
* Kate Millett – Sexual Politics
* Nancy Mitford – Frederick the Great
* Robin Morgan (ed.) – Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement
* Harold Perkin – The Age of the Railway
* J. B. Priestley – The Edwardians
* Albert Speer – Inside the Third Reich
* Alvin Toffler – Future Shock

## Births

* January 25 – Stephen Chbosky, American novelist and screenwriter
* February 28 – Daniel Handler, American novelist
* March 6 – Simona Vinci, Italian fiction writer
* March 12 – Dave Eggers, American writer, editor and publisher
* March 20 – Michele Jaffe, American author
* March 26 – Martin McDonagh, British-born Irish playwright
* May 20 – Dorthe Nors, Danish fiction writer
* May 26 – Alex Garland, English novelist
* June 6 – Sarah Dessen, American novelist
* July 22 – Doug Johnstone, Scottish crime fiction writer
* August 27 - Ann Aguirre, American speculative fiction writer
* September 10 – Phaswane Mpe, South African novelist (died 2004)
* September 16 – Nick Sagan, American novelist and screenwriter
* October 27 – Jonathan Stroud, English fantasy writer
* November 7 – Chris Adrian, American novelist
* November 24 – Marlon James, Jamaican novelist
* November 27 – Han Kang, South Korean novelist
* December 21 – Mohamedou Ould Salahi, Mauritanian author and former Guantánamo detainee
* unknown dates
** Raja'a Alem, Saudi Arabian writer
** Roberta Dapunt, Italian poet
** Nathan Englander, American novelist and short story writer
** Neel Mukherjee, Indian novelist
** Faruk Šehić, Bosnian poet and fiction writer

## Deaths

* January 10 – Charles Olson, American modernist poet (liver cancer, born 1910)
* January 29 – B. H. Liddell Hart, English military historian (born 1895)
* February 2 – Bertrand Russell, English philosopher (born 1872)
* February 4 – Louise Bogan, American poet (born 1897)
* February 20 – Sophie Treadwell, American dramatist and journalist (born 1885)
* February 21 – Johannes Semper, Estonian writer, translator and politician (born 1892)
* March 11 – Erle Stanley Gardner, American writer (born 1889)
* March 15 – Arthur Adamov, Russian-French playwright (born 1908)
* March 21 – Marlen Haushofer, Austrian novelist (born 1920)
* March 29 – Vera Brittain, English novelist, memoirist and poet (born 1893)
* April 11 – John O'Hara, American novelist (cardiovascular disease, born 1905)
* May 7 – Jack Jones, Welsh novelist (born 1884)
* May 12 – Nelly Sachs, Jewish German poet and dramatist (born 1891)
* June 2 – Giuseppe Ungaretti, Italian modernist poet and writer (born 1888)
* June 3 – Ruth Sawyer, American children's writer and novelist (born 1880)
* June 7 – E. M. Forster, English novelist (born 1879)
* June 16 – Elsa Triolet, French novelist (born 1896)
* July 7 – Allen Lane, English publisher (born 1902)
* July 15 – Eric Berne, Canadian-born psychiatrist and author (heart attack, born 1910)
* September 1 – François Mauriac, French novelist (born 1885)
* September 25 – Erich Maria Remarque, German novelist (All Quiet On The Western Front) (born 1898)
* September 28 – John Dos Passos, American novelist (born 1896)
* October 18 – Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Irish language writer (born 1906)
* November 23 – Alf Prøysen, Norwegian author, musician and children's writer (born 1914)
* November 25 – Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫), Japanese author (seppuku, born 1925)
* unknown date – Racey Helps, English children's author and illustrator (born 1913)

## Awards

* Nobel Prize for Literature: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

### Canada

* See 1970 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

### France

* Prix Goncourt: Michel Tournier, Le Roi des Aulnes
* Prix Médicis French: Camille Bourniquel, Sélinonte ou la Chambre impériale
* Prix Médicis International: Luigi Malerba, Saut de la mort

### United Kingdom

* Booker Prize: Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member
* Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen, The God Beneath the Sea
* Cholmondeley Award: Kathleen Raine, Douglas Livingstone, Edward Brathwaite
* Eric Gregory Award: Helen Frye, Paul Mills, John Mole, Brian Morse, Alan Perry, Richard Tibbitts
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Lily Powell, The Bird of Paradise
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston
* Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Roy Fuller

### United States

* Hugo Award: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
* Nebula Award: Larry Niven, Ringworld
* Newbery Medal for children's literature: William H. Armstrong, Sounder
* Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Charles Gordone, No Place To Be Somebody
* Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Jean Stafford, Collected Stories
* Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Howard, Untitled Subjects

### Elsewhere

* Miles Franklin Award: Dal Stivens, A Horse of Air
* Alfaguara Prize: Carlos Droguett, Todas esas muertes
* Premio Nadal: Jesús Fernández Santos, Libro de las memorias de las cosas
* Viareggio Prize: Nello Saito, Dentro e fuori