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.

Ayi Kwei Armah – The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born
Elizabeth Bowen – Eva Trout
Anthony Burgess – Enderby Outside
Victor Canning – The Melting Man
Agatha Christie - By the Pricking of My Thumbs
Cormac McCarthy – Outer Dark
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 (, Rakovy Korpus)
Muriel Spark – The Public Image

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)

Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Léopold Sédar Senghor
Hugo Award for Best Novella: Riders of the Purple Wage by Philip José Farmer / Weyr Search by Anne McCaffrey