# 1989 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1989.

## Events

* February 14 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Supreme Leader of Iran (died 3 June 1989), issues a fatwa calling for the death of Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie and his publishers for issuing the novel The Satanic Verses (1988). On February 24 Iran places a US $3 million bounty on Rushdie's head. On August 3, 1989, a bomb kills Mustafa Mazeh in London as he attempts to plant it in a hotel, in order to carry out the fatwa.
* March 1 – The Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 comes into effect in the United States, making the country a party to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886.
* April 23 – Leading figures of the theatre mark William Shakespeare's birthday with a street party to oppose the destruction of the recently-discovered archaeological remains of the English Renaissance Rose Theatre and Globe theatres in London.
* October – The National Library of Norway is established, with a new building at Mo i Rana.
* December 29 – Playwright Václav Havel becomes President of Czechoslovakia.

## New books
### Fiction

* Hanan al-Shaykh – Women of Sand and Myrrh (Misk al–ghazal)
* Martin Amis – London Fields
* Piers Anthony – Total Recall
* Iain Banks – Canal Dreams
* John Banville – The Book of Evidence
* Clive Barker – The Great and Secret Show
* Julian Barnes – A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
* Thomas Berger – Changing the Past
* Larry Bond – Red Phoenix
* Larry Brown – Dirty Work
* Anthony Burgess – Any Old Iron
* Nick Cave – And the Ass Saw the Angel
* Tom Clancy – Clear and Present Danger
* Mary Higgins Clark – While My Pretty One Sleeps
* Hugh Cook – The Wicked and the Witless
* Bernard Cornwell
** Sharpe's Revenge
** Sea Lord (aka Killer's Wake)
* Bryce Courtenay – The Power of One
* Robert Crais – Stalking the Angel
* Lindsey Davis – The Silver Pigs
* L. Sprague de Camp
** The Honorable Barbarian
** (with Fletcher Pratt) – The Complete Compleat Enchanter
* E. L. Doctorow – Billy Bathgate
* Katherine Dunn – Geek Love
* Umberto Eco – Foucault's Pendulum
* George Alec Effinger – A Fire in the Sun
* Mircea Eliade (died 1986) – Diary of a Short-Sighted Adolescent (Romanul adolescentului miop) (written 1921–1925)
* Ben Elton – Stark
* Steve Erickson – Tours of the Black Clock
* Laura Esquivel – Like Water for Chocolate (Como agua para chocolate)
* Ken Follett – The Pillars of the Earth
* Frederick Forsyth – The Negotiator
* Jon Fosse – Naustet (Boathouse)
* Gabriel García Márquez – The General in His Labyrinth (El general en su laberinto)
* John Gardner
** Licence to Kill
** Win, Lose or Die
* Charles Gill – The Boozer Challenge
* John Grisham – A Time to Kill
* A. M. Homes – Jack
* Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter – The Conan Chronicles
* John Irving – A Prayer for Owen Meany
* Kazuo Ishiguro – The Remains of the Day
* Fleur Jaeggy – it:I beati anni del castigo (Sweet Days of Discipline)
* Randall Kenan – A Visitation of Spirits
* Elias Khoury – رحلة غاندي الصغير (Rihlat Ghandi al-saghir, The Journey of Little Gandhi)
* Stephen King – The Dark Half
* László Krasznahorkai – The Melancholy of Resistance (Az ellenállás melankóliája)
* Joe R. Lansdale
** Cold in July
** By Bizarre Hands
* John le Carré – The Russia House
* H. P. Lovecraft – The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions (corrected edition)
* Hilary Mantel – Fludd
* Javier Marías – Todas las almas (All Souls)
* James A. Michener – Six Days in Havana
* Hanna Mina – The End of a Brave Man (Nihayat Rajul Shujaa)
* Bharati Mukherjee – Jasmine
* Larry Niven – The Legacy of Heorot
* Joyce Carol Oates – American Appetites
* Robert B. Parker – Playmates
* Ellis Peters
** The Heretic's Apprentice
** The Potter's Field
* Giuseppe Pontiggia – La grande sera
* Terry Pratchett
** Guards! Guards!
** Pyramids
* Paul Quarrington – Whale Music
* Mordecai Richler – Solomon Gursky Was Here
* Giampaolo Rugarli – Il nido di ghiaccio
* José Saramago – The History of the Siege of Lisbon
* Sidney Sheldon – The Sands of Time
* Dan Simmons – Hyperion
* John Skipp and Craig Spector – Book of the Dead
* Danielle Steel
** Daddy
** Star
* Bruce Sterling – Crystal Express
* Alexander Stuart – The War Zone
* Amy Tan – The Joy Luck Club
* Shashi Tharoor – The Great Indian Novel
* Rose Tremain – Restoration
* Jane Vandenburgh – Failure to Zig-Zag
* Andrew Vachss – Hard Candy
* Alice Walker – The Temple of My Familiar
* Robert McLiam Wilson – Ripley Bogle
* Roger Zelazny
** Frost & Fire (short stories and essays)
** Knight of Shadows
* Barbara Kingsolver - The Bean Trees

### Children and young people

* Verna Aardema – Rabbit Makes a Monkey of Lion
* Joyce Barkhouse – Pit Pony
* Bruce Coville – My Teacher Is an Alien
* Anne Fine
** Bill's New Frock
** Goggle-Eyes
* Mark Helprin (with Chris Van Allsburg) – Swan Lake
* Yoshi Kogo – Big Al
* Norman Maclean (with Barry Moser) – A River Runs Through It
* Bill Martin Jr. (with Lois Ehlert) – Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
* David McKee – Elmer
* Jim Murphy – The Call Of The Wolves
* Bill Peet – Bill Peet: An Autobiography
* Robert D. San Souci – The Talking Eggs: A Folktale from the American South
* Jon Scieszka (with Lane Smith) – The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!
* R. L. Stine – The New Girl (first in the Fear Street series of 55 books)
* Christopher Tolkien (with J. R. R. Tolkien and Alan Lee) – The Treason of Isengard
* Hélène Desputeaux – Caillou
* Michael Rosen – We're Going on a Bear Hunt

### Drama

* Herman Brusselmans and Tom Lanoye – De Canadese muur (The Canadian Wall)
* Jim Cartwright – Two
* Nick Darke – Kissing the Pope (original title: Campesinos)
* Michael Wall – Amongst Barbarians
* Keith Waterhouse – Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell

### Poetry

* Simon Armitage – Zoom!
* Paul Fleischman – Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices
* David Lehman – The Best American Poetry 1989

### Non-fiction

* Gisela Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg – Angst und Vorurteil
* Bill Bryson – The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America
* Rodney Cotterill – No Ghost in the Machine: Modern Science and the Brain, the Mind, and the Soul
* Stephen R. Covey – The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
* Bruno Dagens – Angkor: Heart of an Asian Empire
* William Dalrymple – In Xanadu: A Quest
* Cynthia Enloe – Bananas, Beaches and Bases
* Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon – Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony
* Rüdiger Imhof – John Banville: A Critical Introduction, the first full-length appraisal of the work of major turn of the century writer John Banville.
* Tim Jeal – Baden-Powell
* Pauline Kael – Hooked
* Bob Kane and Tom Andrae – Batman and Me
* John Keegan – The Face of Battle
* Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson – And Their Children After Them
* Peter Mayle – A Year in Provence
* Claudia Moatti – The Search for Ancient Rome
* Ann Moir and David Jessel – Brain Sex
* New Revised Standard Version of the Bible
* Michael Palin – Around the World in 80 Days
* Harold Perkin – The Rise of Professional Society. England Since 1880
* Gilda Radner – It's Always Something
* Peter Sloterdijk – Infinite Mobilization (Eurotaoismus)
* Dan Topolski and Patrick Robinson – True Blue: The Oxford Boat Race Mutiny
* V. Vale and Andrea Juno – Modern Primitives
* Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett – The Andy Warhol Diaries
* Jeremy Wilson – Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of T. E. Lawrence
* Bob Wood – Big Ten Country

## Births

* August 26 - Sara Raasch, American young-adult fiction writer

## Deaths

* January 4 – Srikrishna Alanahalli, Indian novelist and poet (born 1947)
* January 8 – Bruce Chatwin, English travel writer and novelist (born 1940)
* February 3 – John Cassavetes, American actor, director and writer (born 1929)
* February 12 – Thomas Bernhard, Austrian author (born 1931)
* February 21 – Denys Corley Smith, English author and journalist (born 1922)
* March 14 – Edward Abbey, American essayist (born 1927)
* March 27 – Malcolm Cowley, American novelist and poet (born 1898)
* April 14 – Laurence Meynell (Valerie Baxter, A. Stephen Tring), English novelist and children's writer (born 1899)
* April 19 – Daphne du Maurier, English novelist (born 1907)
* May 19 – C. L. R. James, Trinidad-born American journalist (born 1901)
* May 20 – Erzsébet Galgóczi, Hungarian novelist, playwright and screenwriter (born 1930)
* July 31 – Zhou Yang, Chinese literary theorist (born 1908)
* August 23 – R. D. Laing, Scottish psychologist and author (born 1927)
* August 26 – Irving Stone, American novelist (born 1903)
* September 4
** Georges Simenon, Belgian novelist and crime writer (born 1903)
** Sir Ronald Syme, New Zealand classicist (born 1903)
* September 13 – Acharya Aatreya, Telugu screenwriter (born 1921)
* September 15 – Robert Penn Warren, American poet and novelist (born 1905)
* September 30
** Horace Alexander, English current-affairs writer and ornithologist (born 1909)
** Oskar Davičo, Serbian novelist and poet (born 1909)
* October 13 – Cesare Zavattini, Italian screenwriter (born 1902)
* November 22 – José Guadalupe Cruz, Mexican comics writer (born 1917)
* December 5 – George Selden (Terry Andrews), American children's author (gastrointestinal bleeding, born 1929)
* December 19 – Stella Gibbons, English novelist (born 1902)
* December 22 – Samuel Beckett, Irish-born playwright, novelist and poet (born 1906)
* December 26 – Paul Jennings, English humorist (born 1918)

## Awards

* Nobel Prize for Literature: Camilo José Cela
* Europe Theatre Prize: Peter Brook
* Camões Prize (first award): Miguel Torga

### Australia

* The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Mandy Sayer, Mood Indigo
* C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Gwen Harwood, Bone Scan
* Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: John Tranter, Under Berlin
* Mary Gilmore Prize: Alex Skovron, The Re-arrangement
* Miles Franklin Award: Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda

### Canada

* See 1989 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

### France

* Prix Goncourt: Jean Vautrin, Un grand Pas vers le Bon Dieu
* Prix Décembre: Guy Dupré, Les Manœuvres d'automne
* Prix Médicis French: Serge Doubrovsky, Le Livre brisé
* Prix Médicis International: Alvaro Mutis, La Neige de l'amiral

### United Kingdom

* Booker Prize: Kazuo Ishiguro – The Remains of the Day
* Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Anne Fine, Goggle-Eyes
* Cholmondeley Award: Peter Didsbury, Douglas Dunn, E. J. Scovell
* Eric Gregory Award: Gerard Woodward, David Morley, Katrina Porteous, Paul Henry
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: James Kelman, A Disaffection
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Ian Gibson, Federico Garcia Lorca: A Life
* Newdigate prize: Jane Griffiths
* Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Allen Curnow
* Whitbread Best Book Award: Richard Holmes, Coleridge: Early Visions
* The Sunday Express Book of the Year: Rose Tremain, Restoration

### United States

* Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Nancy Vieira Couto, The Face in the Water
* Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Anthony Hecht
* American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Fiction, Isaac Bashevis Singer
* Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Jorie Graham, "Spring"
* Compton Crook Award: Elizabeth Moon, Sheepfarmer's Daughter
* Frost Medal: Gwendolyn Brooks
* National Book Critics Circle Award: to The Broken Cord by Michael Dorris
* National Book Award for Fiction: to Spartina by John Casey
* Nebula Award: Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, The Healer's War
* Newbery Medal for children's literature: Paul Fleischman, Joyful Noise
* PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: to Dusk and Other Stories by James Salter
* Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Wendy Wasserstein, The Heidi Chronicles
* Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Anne Tyler – Breathing Lessons
* Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Wilbur: New and Collected Poems
* Whiting Awards:
    Fiction: Ellen Akins, Marianne Wiggins
    Nonfiction: Ian Frazier, Natalie Kusz, Lucy Sante, Tobias Wolff (nonfiction/fiction)
    Plays: Timberlake Wertenbaker
    Poetry: Russell Edson, Mary Karr, C.D. Wright

### Japan

* Falcon Award (Maltese Falcon Society of Japan): Andrew Vachss for Strega
* The Japan Fantasy Novel Award is established, with Ken'ichi Sakemi winning with his novel Kōkyū Shōsetsu.