# 1968 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1968.

## Events

* January 1 – Cecil Day-Lewis is announced as the new Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom.
* April – The American edition of Andrew Garve's thriller The Long Short Cut becomes the first book printed completely by electronic composition.
* May – The Action Theater in Munich is disbanded after its building is wrecked by one of its founders, jealous of director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's growing power in the group.
* June 17 – Tom Stoppard's parodic comedy The Real Inspector Hound opens at the Criterion Theatre in London's West End, starring Richard Briers and Ronnie Barker.
* July 28 – Last Exit to Brooklyn is cleared of obscenity in the English appeal court. John Mortimer appears for the defence.
* September 26 – Theatres Act 1968 (royal assent July 26) ends censorship of the theatre in the United Kingdom.
* November – The English novelist Anthony Burgess and his new wife Liana settle in Lija on Malta.
* unknown dates
** The first translations and book-length discussion of the Sumerian Enheduanna's work is published.
** Dean R. Koontz's first novel, Star Quest, is published by Ace Books in the United States.
** The Arvon Foundation is established by young poets John Fairfax and John Moat in the UK to promote creative writing.

## New books
### Fiction

* Ayi Kwei Armah – The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born
* Elizabeth Bowen – Eva Trout
* Anthony Burgess – Enderby Outside
* Victor Canning – The Melting Man
* Per Anders Fogelström – Stad i världen
* Michael Innes – Appleby at Allington
* John Irving – Setting Free the Bears
* Halldór Laxness – Kristnihald undir jökli (Christianity under the Glacier)
* John le Carré – A Small Town in Germany
* Helen MacInnes – The Salzburg Connection
* Ngaio Marsh – Clutch of Constables
* N. Scott Momaday – House Made of Dawn
* Brian Moore – I Am Mary Dunne
* Fănuș Neagu – Îngerul a strigat ("The Angel Has Shouted")
* Anthony Powell – The Military Philosophers
* Giorgio Scerbanenco – I ragazzi del massacro
* Robert Silverberg – The Masks of Time
* Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – Cancer Ward («Раковый Корпус», Rakovy Korpus)
* Muriel Spark – The Public Image

### Children and young people

* Lloyd Alexander – The High King
* Joan Aiken – The Whispering Mountain
* Don Freeman – Corduroy
* Russell Hoban – The Mouse and His Child
* Ted Hughes – The Iron Man
* Judith Kerr – The Tiger Who Came to Tea
* Alexander Key – Escape to Witch Mountain
* David McKee – Elmer the Patchwork Elephant
* Robert C. O'Brien – The Silver Crown
* Jill Tomlinson – The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark
* Paul Zindel – The Pigman (first in The Pigman trilogy)

### Drama

* Michel Tremblay – Les Belles-Sœurs

### Non-fiction

* Eldridge Cleaver – Soul on Ice
* Joan Didion – Slouching Towards Bethlehem
* Esther Hautzig – The Endless Steppe (autobiography)
* Bevis Hillier – Art Deco of the 20s and 30s
* Pauline Kael – Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
* Peter Maas – The Valachi Papers
* Erich von Däniken – Chariots of the Gods? (Erinnerungen an die Zukunft)
* Gwyn Thomas – A Few Selected Exits
* James D. Watson – The Double Helix

## Births

* October 7 – Rachel Kushner, American writer
* unknown dates
** Brock Clarke, American writer
** K. V. Johansen, Canadian children's author

## Deaths

* January 21 – Will Lang, Jr., American journalist (born 1914)
* March 23 – Edwin O'Connor, American journalist, novelist, and radio commentator (born 1918)
* April 4 - Muhammad Taha al-Huwayzi, Iranian-Iraqi Ja'fari jurist, religious teacher and poet (born 1889)
* April 16 – Edna Ferber, American novelist, short story writer and playwright (born 1885)
* April 27 – Vasily Azhayev, Soviet writer (born 1915)
* April 29 – Anthony Boucher, American author, critic, and editor (born 1911)
* May 1 – Sir Harold Nicolson, British biographer (born 1886)
* May 30 – Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopșor, Romanian anthropologist, ethnographer and children's writer (born 1900)
* May 31 – Abel Bonnard, French poet, novelist and politician (born 1883)
* June 1 – Helen Keller, deaf-blind American author, activist and lecturer (born 1880)
* August 21 - Germaine Guèvremont, Canadian writer (born 1893)
* November 17 – Mervyn Peake, English novelist (dementia, born 1911)
* November 25 – Upton Sinclair, American novelist and politician (born 1878)
* November 28 – Enid Blyton, English author and poet (born 1897)
* December 5 – Anna Kavan, British novelist, short story writer and painter (born 1901)
* December 20 – John Steinbeck, American novelist (congestive heart failure, born 1902)
* December 24 – D. Gwenallt Jones, Welsh poet (born 1899)