1981 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1981.

Events

• May 31 – Burning of Jaffna library: An organized mob of police and government-sponsored paramilitias began burning the public library in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, destroying over 97,000 volumes in one of the most violent examples of ethnic book burning in the modern era.
• John Gardner successfully revives the James Bond novel series originated by Ian Fleming with Licence Renewed (not counting a faux biography of Bond and a pair of film novelizations, the first original Bond novel since 1968's Colonel Sun). The revived Bond book series will run uninterrupted until 2002.
• Colin MacCabe is denied tenure at the University of Cambridge apparently in consequence of his position at the centre of a much publicised dispute within the Faculty of English concerning the teaching of structuralism.
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction given for the first time.

New books

• Kingsley Amis – The Golden Age of Science Fiction
• Martin Amis – Other People
• V. C. Andrews – If There Be Thorns
• Louis Auchincloss – The Cat and the King
• René Barjavel – Une rose au paradis
• Samuel Beckett – Ill Seen Ill Said
• Thomas Berger – Reinhart's Women
• Pierre Berton – Flames Across the Border
• Judy Blume – Tiger Eyes
• Simon Bond – 101 Uses for a Dead Cat
• William Boyd – A Good Man in Africa
• William S. Burroughs – Cities of the Red Night
• Robert Olen Butler – The Alleys of Eden
• Peter Carey – Bliss
• Raymond Carver – What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
• David Case – The Third Grave
• James Clavell – Noble House
• Bernard Cornwell
  • Sharpe's Eagle
  • Sharpe's Gold
• Roald Dahl – George's Marvellous Medicine
• L. Sprague de Camp – The Hand of Zei
• L. Sprague de Camp & Catherine Crook de Camp – Footprints on Sand
• Régine Deforges – La Bicyclette bleue ("The Blue Bicycle")
• Samuel R. Delany – Distant Star
• Michel Déon – Where Are You Dying Tonight?
• Cynthia Freeman – No Time for Tears
• Gabriel García Márquez – Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Crónica de una muerte anunciada)
• John Gardner – Licence Renewed
• Charles L. Grant – Tales from the Nightside
• Alasdair Gray – Lanark
• Jan Guillou – Ondskan
• Thomas Harris – Red Dragon
• Frank Herbert – God Emperor of Dune
• Douglas Hill – Planet of the Warlord
• Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp – The Flame Knife
• John Irving – The Hotel New Hampshire
• Alan Judd – A Breed of Heroes
• Ismail Kadare – The File on H (Dosja J)
• Stephen King – Cujo
• Joe R. Lansdale – Act of Love
• Colleen McCullough – An Indecent Obsession
• Elliot S! Maggin – Miracle Monday
• Naguib Mahfouz – Arabian Nights and Days (ليالي ألف ليلة)
• Ian McEwan – The Comfort of Strangers
• Toni Morrison – Tar Baby
• Robert B. Parker
  • A Savage Place
  • Early Autumn
• Ellis Peters
  • Saint Peter's Fair
  • The Leper of Saint Giles
• Terry Pratchett – Strata
• Jean Raspail – Moi, Antoine de Tounens, roi de Patagonie
• Alain Robbe-Grillet – Djinn
• Harold Robbins – Goodbye, Janette
• Lawrence Sanders – The Third Deadly Sin
• Martin Cruz Smith – Gorky Park
• Anja Snellman – Sonja O. kävi täällä
• Muriel Spark – Loitering with Intent
• Paul Theroux – The Mosquito Coast
• D. M. Thomas – The White Hotel
• Jack Vance – The Book of Dreams
• Mario Vargas Llosa – The War of the End of the World (La guerra del fin del mundo)
• Gore Vidal – Creation
• Joseph Wambaugh – The Glitter Dome
• Kit Williams – Masquerade
• Gene Wolfe
  • The Claw of the Conciliator
  • The Sword of the Lictor
• Roger Zelazny
  • The Changing Land
  • Madwand

New drama

• Samuel Beckett – Rockaby
• Edward Bond – Restoration
• John Krizanc – Tamara
• Larry Shue – The Nerd
• Barney Simon – Woza Albert!
• Patrick Süskind – Der Kontrabaß
• Tennessee Williams – The Notebook of Trigorin

Poetry

Main article: 1981 in poetry

• L. Sprague de Camp – Heroes and Hobgoblins
• Mehr Lal Soni Zia Fatehabadi – Rang-o-Noor ("The Colour and the Light")
• Norman Nicholson – Sea to the West
• Sylvia Plath (posthumous) – Collected Poems, edited by Ted Hughes
• Richard L. Tierney – Collected Poems

Non-fiction

• Maya Angelou – The Heart of a Woman
• Mary Chesnut – Mary Chesnut's Civil War
• Hugo Brandt Corstius – Opperlandse taal- & letterkunde
• Timothy Findley – Famous Last Words
• Stephen Jay Gould – The Mismeasure of Man
• Dumas Malone – The Sage of Monticello
• Ian Smith – The Great Betrayal
• Viktor Suvorov – The Liberators

Births

• July 10 – Karen Russell, American novelist
• December 10 – NoViolet Bulawayo (Elizabeth Zandile Tshele), Zimbabwe-born novelist
• Unknown date
  • Amy Sackville, English novelist
  • Sunjeev Sahota, English novelist

Deaths

• January 9 – A. J. Cronin, Scottish novelist (born 1896)
• February 17 – David Garnett, English novelist (born 1892)
• February 23 – Nan Shepherd, Scottish novelist and poet (born 1893)
• March 7 – Bosley Crowther, American film critic (born 1905)
• March 20 – Pedro García Cabrera, Spanish poet (born 1905)
• March 29 – Clive Sansom, English-born Tasmanian poet and playwright (born 1910)
• April 23 – Josep Pla, Catalan Spanish journalist and writer (born 1897)
• April 26 – Robert Garioch, Scottish poet (born 1909)
• May 8 – Uri Zvi Grinberg, Israeli poet writing in Hebrew and Yiddish (born 1896)
• May 9 – Nelson Algren, American novelist (born 1909)
• May 18 – William Saroyan, American novelist and dramatist (born 1908)
• June 15 – Philip Toynbee, English novelist and journalist (born 1916)
• September 3 – Alec Waugh, English novelist (born 1898)
• September 12 – Eugenio Montale, Italian poet (born 1896)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Elias Canetti

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Chris Matthews, Al Jazzar; Tim Winton, An Open Swimmer
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Alan Gould, Astral Sea
• Miles Franklin Award: Peter Carey, Bliss

Canada

• See 1981 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Lucien Bodard, Anne Marie
• Prix Médicis French: François-Olivier Rousseau, L'Enfant d'Édouard
• Prix Médicis International: David Shahar, Le Jour de la comtesse

Spain

• Miguel de Cervantes Prize: Octavio Paz

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Robert Westall, The Scarecrows
• Cholmondeley Award: Roy Fisher, Robert Garioch, Charles Boyle
• Eric Gregory Award: Alan Jenkins, Simon Rae, Marion Lomax, Philip Gross, Kathleen Jamie, Mark Abley, Roger Crowley, Ian Gregson
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children, and Paul Theroux, The Mosquito Coast
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Victoria Glendinning, Edith Sitwell: Unicorn Among Lions
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: D. J. Enright
• Whitbread Best Book Award: William Boyd, A Good Man in Africa

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Kathy Calloway, Heart of the Garfish
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Belles Lettres: Malcolm Cowley
• Dos Passos Prize: Gilbert Sorrentino
• Nebula Award: Gene Wolfe, The Claw of the Conciliator
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Katherine Paterson, Jacob Have I Loved
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Beth Henley, Crimes of the Heart
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: John Kennedy Toole – A Confederacy of Dunces
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: James Schuyler: The Morning of the Poem

Elsewhere

• Hugo Award for Best Novel: The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge
• Premio Nadal: Carmen Gómez Ojea, Cantiga de aguero