Question: Which of John Irving's writings were published prior to 1981?
Answer(s):
answer: Setting Free the Bears
answer: Water Method Man
answer: The 158-Pound Marriage
answer: The World According to Garp

SPARQL query:
PREFIX ns: <http://rdf.freebase.com/ns/>
SELECT DISTINCT ?x
WHERE {
FILTER (?x != ns:m.042v2)
FILTER (!isLiteral(?x) OR lang(?x) = '' OR langMatches(lang(?x), 'en'))
ns:m.042v2 ns:book.author.works_written ?x .
?x ns:book.written_work.date_of_first_publication ?num .
FILTER (?num < "1981"^^xsd:dateTime) . 
}