1980 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1980.

Events

March 6 – Marguerite Yourcenar becomes the first woman elected to the Académie française.
June 5
The Royal Shakespeare Company opens a production at the Aldwych Theatre, London, of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, adapted from Charles Dickens's novel by David Edgar.
Willy Russell's comedy Educating Rita opens in a Royal Shakespeare Company production with Julie Walters in the title rôle, at The Warehouse in London.
September – A production of Shakespeare's Macbeth with Peter O'Toole in the lead opens at the Old Vic Theatre, London. It is often seen one of the disasters in theatre history.
September 23 – The Field Day Theatre Company presents its first production, the première of Brian Friel's Translations, at the Guildhall, Derry, Northern Ireland.
November 27 – The English playwright Harold Pinter marries the biographer and novelist Lady Antonia Fraser after divorcing the actress Vivien Merchant.
December 8 – Mark David Chapman shoots John Lennon to death in New York City while carrying a copy of J. D. Salinger's 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, which he claims "is my statement."
December 19 – Guatemalan poet Alaíde Foppa is abducted and never seen again.
unknown dates
Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer (published 1979), tops The New York Times Best Seller list.
Vasily Grossman's novel Life and Fate ("Жизнь и судьба", completed 1959) is published for the first time, in Switzerland.
The first Tibetan-language literature journal, Tibetan Literature and Art (), is published by the Tibet Autonomous Region Writers Association (TARWA); it features short stories.
The novella "An Old Song", published anonymously in 1877 in the magazine London, is identified as Robert Louis Stevenson's first published work of fiction.

New books

Fiction

Douglas Adams – The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Woody Allen – Side Effects
V. C. Andrews – Petals on the Wind
Jean M. Auel – The Clan of the Cave Bear
Thomas Berger – Neighbors
Gary Brandner – Walkers
Anthony Burgess – Earthly Powers
Ramsey Campbell, editor – New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
Jack L. Chalker (Well World)
The Return of Nathan Brazil (fourth in the Well of Souls series)
Twilight at the Well of Souls (fifth in the Well of Souls series)
Bruce Chatwin – The Viceroy of Ouidah
Mary Higgins Clark – The Cradle Will Fall
J. M. Coetzee – Waiting for the Barbarians
Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre – The Fifth Horseman
Pat Conroy – The Lords of Discipline
Basil Copper – Necropolis
Michael Crichton – Congo
L. Sprague de Camp
Conan and the Spider God
The Purple Pterodactyls
Brian Daley – Han Solo and the Lost Legacy
E. L. Doctorow – Loon Lake
Allan W. Eckert – Song of the Wild
Umberto Eco – The Name of the Rose (Il Nome della Rosa)
Dennis Etchison
The Fog (film novelization)
The Shudder
Ken Follett – The Key to Rebecca
John M. Ford – Web of Angels
Frederick Forsyth – The Devil's Alternative
George Gipe
Melvin and Howard (film novelization)
Resurrection (film novelization)
Donald F. Glut – The Empire Strikes Back
Mary Jayne Gold – Crossroads Marseilles 1940
William Golding – Rites of Passage
Graham Greene – Dr. Fischer of Geneva
Robert A. Heinlein – The Number of the Beast
James Herbert – The Dark
Douglas Hill
Day of the Starwind
Deathwing Over Veynaa
Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp – The Treasure of Tranicos
Hammond Innes – Solomon's Seal
P. D. James – Innocent Blood
Stephen King – Firestarter
Dean Koontz
The Funhouse (film novelization)
The Voice of the Night
Whispers
Judith Krantz – Princess Daisy
Björn Kurtén – Dance of the Tiger
Manuel Mujica Láinez – El gran teatro
Derek Lambert – I, Said the Spy
John le Carré – Smiley's People
Madeleine L'Engle – A Ring of Endless Light
Robert Ludlum – The Bourne Identity
Eric Van Lustbader – The Ninja
Ngaio Marsh – Photo Finish
Mike McQuay – Lifekeeper
James A. Michener – The Covenant
William F. Nolan – Logan's Search
Cees Nooteboom – Rituals

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Robert B. Parker – Looking for Rachel Wallace
Pepetela – Mayombe
Ellis Peters – Monk's Hood
Tom Phillips – A Humument: a treated Victorian novel (1st trade edition)
Belva Plain – Random Winds
Paulette Poujol-Oriol – Le Creuset (The Crucible)
Marin Preda – Cel mai iubit dintre pământeni (The Most Beloved of Earthlings)
Barbara Pym (died 1980) – Crampton Hodnet (written 1940)
A. J. Quinnell – Man on Fire
Herman Raucher – There Should Have Been Castles
Mordecai Richler – Joshua Then and Now
Marilynne Robinson – Housekeeping
Sidney Sheldon – Rage of Angels
Clifford D. Simak – The Visitors
Julian Symons – Sweet Adelaide
Gay Talese – Thy Neighbor's Wife
Walter Tevis – Mockingbird
John Kennedy Toole (suicide 1969) – A Confederacy of Dunces
Colin Wilson – Starseekers
Gene Wolfe – The Shadow of the Torturer
Roger Zelazny
Changeling
The Last Defender of Camelot

Children and young people

Richard Adams
The Girl in a Swing
The Iron Wolf and Other Stories
Vivien Alcock – The Haunting of Cassie Palmer
Pamela Allen – Mr Archimedes' Bath
Lynne Reid Banks – The Indian in the Cupboard
Jill Barklem – Brambly Hedge series:
Spring Story
Summer Story
Autumn Story
Winter Story
Ruskin Bond – The Cherry Tree
Matt Christopher – Wild Pitch
Roald Dahl – The Twits
David Mckee - Not Now, Bernard
Thomas M. Disch – The Brave Little Toaster
Buchi Emecheta – Titch the Cat
Gordon Korman – Beware the Fish
Ruth Manning-Sanders – A Book of Spooks and Spectres
Thomas Meehan – Annie: An old-fashioned story
Robert Munsch – The Paper Bag Princess
Susan Musgrave
Gullband
Hag Head
Ruth Park – Playing Beatie Bow
Marjorie W. Sharmat – Gila Monsters Meet you at the Airport
Mary Stewart – A Walk in Wolf Wood
Eric Hill – Where's Spot?
Janet and Allan Ahlberg – Funnybones
Pam Adams – Mrs Honey's Hat

Drama

Howard Brenton – The Romans in Britain
Andrea Dunbar – The Arbor
David Edgar (adaptation) – The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
Ronald Harwood – The Dresser
Ron Hutchinson – The Irish Play
Kenneth Ross – Breaker Morant
Willy Russell – Educating Rita
Sam Shepard – True West

Poetry

Valerio Magrelli – Ora serrata retinae
Oxford Book of Contemporary Verse

Non-fiction

Tony Benn – Arguments for Socialism
Pierre Berton – The Invasion of Canada
Maryanne Blacker and Pamela Clark – Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book
David Bohm – Wholeness and the Implicate Order
L. Sprague de Camp – The Ragged Edge of Science
L. Sprague de Camp (as editor) – The Spell of Conan
Graham Chapman et al. – A Liar's Autobiography
Marilyn Ferguson – The Aquarian Conspiracy
Stanley Fish – Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities
Julien Gracq – Reading Writing
Graham Greene – Ways of Escape
Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman – No One Here Gets Out Alive
Pauline Kael – When the Lights Go Down
János Kornai – Economics of Shortage (Hiány)
Paul H. Lewis – Paraguay Under Stroessner
Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers – Grimoire of Armadel translation from French (posthumous)
Michael Medved and Harry Medved – The Golden Turkey Awards
Tom O'Carroll – Paedophilia: The Radical Case
Carl Sagan – Cosmos
Anastasio Somoza Debayle and Jack Cox – Nicaragua Betrayed
D. I. Suchianu – Nestemate cinematografice (Cinematic Pearls)
Ram Swarup – The Word as Revelation: Names of Gods
Alvin Toffler – The Third Wave
Bertram Myron Gross – Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America

Births

January 1 – Satya Vyas, Indian (Hindi language) writer
May 1 – Jacek Dehnel, Polish poet, writer and translator
May 10 – Cristina Nemerovschi, Romanian writer
May 27 – Majlinda Nana Rama, Albanian pedagogue, writer and researcher
June 5 – Nestan Kvinikadze, Georgian writer, scriptwriter and journalist
July 30 - Celeste Ng, American novelist
September 11 – Dawit Kebede, Ethiopian journalist and publisher
October 29 – Louie Jon Agustin Sanchez, Philippine poet, fiction writer, critic and journalist
November 23 – Ishmael Beah, Siera Leonean author and human rights activist

Deaths

January 3
Joy Adamson, Silesian-born conservationist and writer living in Kenya (murdered, born 1910)
George Sutherland Fraser, Scottish poet and critic (born 1915)
January 11 – Barbara Pym, English novelist (cancer, born 1913)
January 21 – Irene Rathbone, English novelist (born 1892)
February 25 – Caradog Prichard, Welsh poet and novelist in Welsh (born 1904)
March 12 – Eugeniu Ștefănescu-Est, Romanian poet, novelist and cartoonist (born 1881)
March 17 – P. M. Hubbard, English crime writer (born 1910)
March 25 – James Wright, American poet (born 1927)
March 26 – Roland Barthes, French literary theorist (born 1915)
March 27 – Idris Jamma', Sudanese poet (died 1980)
April 6 – John Collier, English-born American short story writer (born 1901)
April 15 – Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher, novelist and dramatist (born 1905)
April 24 – Alejo Carpentier, French Cuban novelist and writer (cancer, born 1904)
May 7 – Margaret Cole, English political writer, biographer and activist (born 1893)
May 16 – Marin Preda, Romanian novelist (asphyxiation, born 1922)
June 7
Salvator Gotta, Italian writer (born 1887)
Henry Miller, American novelist (born 1891)
June 20 – Amy Key Clarke, English mystical poet (born 1892)
June 27 – Carey McWilliams, American author, editor and lawyer (born 1905)
July 1 – C. P. Snow, English novelist and scientist (born 1905)
July 6 – Mart Raud, Estonian poet, playwright and writer (born 1903)
July 9 – Vinicius de Moraes, Brazilian poet and songwriter (born 1913)
July 17 – Traian Herseni, Romanian social scientist and journalist (born 1907)
July 23 – Olivia Manning, English novelist and poet (born 1908)
July 26 – Kenneth Tynan, English-born theater critic (pulmonary emphysema, born 1927)
August 8 – David Mercer, English dramatist (born 1928)
August 10 – Gareth Evans, British philosopher (lung cancer, born 1946)
September 18 – Katherine Anne Porter, American novelist and essayist (born 1890)
September 19 – Jacky Gillott, English novelist (suicide, born 1939)
October 26 – Sam Cree, Northern Irish playwright (born 1928)
November 9 – Patrick Campbell, Irish journalist and wit (born 1913)
December 2 – Romain Gary (Roman Kacew), French novelist (suicide, born 1914)
December 8 – John Lennon, English musician, songwriter and author (murdered, born 1940)
December 12 – Ben Travers, English playwright, screenwriter and novelist (born 1886)
December 14 – Nichita Smochină, Transnistrian Romanian ethnographer and journalist (born 1894)
December 21
Marc Connelly, American playwright (born 1890)
Nelson Rodrigues, Brazilian playwright, journalist and novelist (born 1912)
December 27 – Todhunter Ballard, American genre novelist (born 1903)
December 31 – Marshall McLuhan, Canadian philosopher (born 1911)

Awards

Nobel Prize for Literature: Czesław Miłosz

Australia

The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Inaugural award to Archie Weller, The Day Of The Dog; the award is initially given to Paul Radley, who, in 1996, admits that his manuscript was actually written by his uncle.
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: David Campbell, Man in the Honeysuckle
Miles Franklin Award: Jessica Anderson, The Impersonators

Canada

See 1980 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

Prix Goncourt: Yves Navarre, Le Jardin d'acclimatation
Prix Médicis French: Jean-Luc Benoziglio, Cabinet-portrait who refused the prize, thus it was given to Jean Lahougue's Comptine des Height
Prix Médicis International: Andre Brink, Une saison blanche et sèche

United Kingdom

Booker Prize: William Golding, Rites of Passage
Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Peter Dickinson, City of Gold
Cholmondeley Award: George Barker, Terence Tiller, Roy Fuller
Eric Gregory Award: Robert Minhinnick, Michael Hulse, Blake Morrison, Medbh McGuckian
James Tait Black Memorial Prize:
Fiction: J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
Biography: Robert B. Martin, Tennyson: The Unquiet Heart
Whitbread Best Book Award: David Lodge, How Far Can You Go?

United States

American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Edward Albee
Caldecott Medal: Barbara Cooney, Ox-Cart Man
Dos Passos Prize: Graham Greene
Nebula Award: Gregory Benford, Timescape
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Joan Blos, A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal
Pulitzer Prize:
Drama: Lanford Wilson, Talley's Folly
Fiction: Norman Mailer, The Executioner's Song
Poetry: Donald Justice, Selected Poems
Hugo Award:
Best Novella: Barry B. Longyear, Enemy Mine