1974 in literature

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This article presents a list of the literary events and publications in 1974.

Events

• February 12 – Following publication at the end of 1973 of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago (Архипелаг ГУЛАГ), the author is arrested for treason; the following day he is deported from the Soviet Union. In spring and summer the first translations into French and English begin to appear.
• October 21 – New Guildhall Library opened in the City of London.
• Novelist Juan Carlos Onetti is among a group arrested and incarcerated by the Uruguayan dictatorship for selecting as a competition prizewinner and publishing in the newspaper Marcha a short story implicitly critical of the military regime; he subsequently goes into exile in Spain.
• The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics is founded by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman.

New books

• Richard Adams – Shardik
• Kingsley Amis – Ending Up
• Augusto Roa Bastos – I, the Supreme (Yo el supremo)
• Peter Benchley – Jaws
• Hal Bennett – Wait Until the Evening
• Heinrich Böll – The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum oder: Wie Gewalt entstehen und wohin sie führen kann)
• Anthony Burgess – The Clockwork Testament, or Enderby's End
• Andrés Caicedo – "Maternidad"
• Robert A. Caro – The Power Broker
• Agatha Christie – Poirot's Early Cases
• Robert Cormier – The Chocolate War
• Roald Dahl – Switch Bitch
• Philip K. Dick – Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
• Annie Dillard – Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
• Lawrence Durrell – Monsieur
• Frederick Forsyth – The Dogs of War
• John Fowles – The Ebony Tower
• Donald Goines – Crime Partners
• Imil Habibi – The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist (الوقائع الغريبة في اختفاء سعيد أبي النحس المتشائل, Al-Waqāʾiʿ al-gharībah fī 'khtifāʾ Saʿīd Abī 'l-Naḥsh al-Mutashāʾil)
• John Hawkes – Death Sleep
• Joseph Heller – Something Happened
• James Herbert – The Rats
• Erica Jong – Fear of Flying
• Anna Kavan – Let Me Alone
• Stephen King – Carrie
• Manuel Mujica Láinez
  • El laberinto
  • El viaje de los siete demonios
• Margaret Laurence – The Diviners
• John le Carré – Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
• Ursula K. Le Guin – The Dispossessed
• Madeleine L'Engle – A Wind in the Door
• H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth – The Watchers Out of Time and Others
• Robert Ludlum – The Cry of the Halidon
• Brian Lumley – Beneath the Moors
• Ruth Manning-Sanders – A Book of Sorcerers and Spells
• Colleen McCullough – Tim
• Nicholas Meyer – The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
• James A. Michener – Centennial
• Meja Mwangi – Carcase for Hounds
• Vladimir Nabokov – Look at the Harlequins!
• Edith Pargeter – Sunrise in the West (first in the "Brothers of Gwynedd" quartet)
• Robert B. Parker – God Save the Child
• Robert M. Pirsig – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
• Ellen Raskin – Figgs & Phantoms
• Ishmael Reed – The Last Days of Louisiana Red
• Harold Robbins – The Pirate
• Leonardo Sciascia – Todo modo
• Tom Sharpe – Porterhouse Blue
• Sidney Sheldon – The Other Side of Midnight
• C. P. Snow – In Their Wisdom
• Studs Terkel – Working
• Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman – Collected Ghost Stories

New drama

• Michael Cook – Jacob's Wake
• Dario Fo – Can't Pay? Won't Pay! (Non Si Paga! Non Si Paga!)
• Paavo Haavikko
  • Ratsumies ("The Horseman")
  • Kuningas lähtee Ranskaan ("The King Goes Forth to France")
  • Harald Pitkäikäinen
• Ira Levin – Veronica's Room
• Mustapha Matura – Play Mas
• Harold Pinter – No Man's Land
• David Rudkin – Penda's Fen (television play)
• Tom Stoppard – Travesties

New poetry

Main article: 1974 in poetry

• Duncan Bush, Tony Curtis, Nigel Jenkins – Three Young Anglo-Welsh Poets

Non-fiction

• Maya Angelou – Gather Together in My Name
• Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward – All the President's Men
• Vincent Bugliosi – Helter Skelter
• Shelby Foote – The Civil War: A Narrative – Vol 3: Red River to Appomattox
• Dumas Malone – Jefferson the President: Second Term, 1805-1809
• Jonathan Raban – Soft City
• Piers Paul Read – Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors
• Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia (Հայկական Սովետական Հանրագիտարան, Haykakan sovetakan hanragitaran; begins publication)
• Lewis Thomas – The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher
• Joseph Wambaugh – The Onion Field

Births

• January 6 – Romain Sardou, French novelist
• January 26 – Shannon Hale, American fantasy author
• April 13 – K. Sello Duiker, South African novelist (died 2005)
• August 7 – Faisal Tehrani, Malaysian novelist
• August 9 – Ryūsui Seiryōin, Japanese novelist
• August 18 – Nicole Krauss, American novelist
• August 23 – Serhiy Zhadan, Ukrainian poet, novelist and essayist
• September 20 – Owen Sheers, Fijian-born Welsh poet, playwright and novelist
• November 4 – Carlos Be, Spanish playwright
• December 26 – Joshua John Miller, American novelist and screenwriter
• Unknown dates
  • Naomi Alderman, English novelist
  • Joanna Kavenna, English novelist and travel writer
  • Joe Meno, American novelist and journalist
  • Roger Williams, Welsh dramatist and screenwriter

Deaths

• January 20 – Edmund Blunden, English poet and critic (born 1896)
• January 25 – James Pope-Hennessy, English biographer (murdered, born 1916)
• January 29 – H. E. Bates, English novelist (born 1905)
• February 2 – Marieluise Fleißer, German dramatist (born 1901)
• February 24 – Martin Armstrong, English poet and short story writer (born 1882)
• March 3 – Carl Jacob Burckhardt, Swiss historian (born 1891)
• March 19 – Austin Clarke, Irish poet, playwright and novelist (born 1896)
• March 24 – Olive Higgins Prouty, American novelist (born 1882)
• April 14 – Howard Pease, American novelist (born 1894)
• May 13 – Arthur J. Burks, American writer (born 1898)
• June 2 – Tom Kristensen, novelist and poet (born 1893)
• June 11 – Julius Evola, philosopher and author (born 1898)
• June 9 – Miguel Ángel Asturias, Nobel Prize-winning novelist (born 1899)
• July 4 – Georgette Heyer, English novelist (born 1902)
• August 7 – Rosario Castellanos, Mexican writer and diplomat (electric shock, born 1925)
• August 11 – Jan Tschichold, German-born typographer and writer (born 1902)
• September 21 – Jacqueline Susann, American novelist (born 1918)
• October 4 – Anne Sexton, American poet (born 1928)
• October 29 – Victor E. van Vriesland, Dutch writer (born 1892)
• November 5 – William Gardner Smith, expatriate American novelist and journalist (born 1927)
• November 7 – Eric Linklater, Welsh-born Scottish novelist and travel writer (born 1899)
• November 28 – David Jones, artist and poet (born 1895)
• December 14 – Walter Lippmann, writer (born 1889)
• Unknown date – Buddhadeb Bosu, Bengali poet and writer (born 1908)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson

Canada

• See 1974 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Pascal Lainé, La Dentellière
• Prix Médicis French: Porporino ou les Mystèrs de Naples
• Prix Médicis International: Julio Cortázar, Libro de Manuel

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Nadine Gordimer, The Conservationist and Stanley Middleton, Holiday.
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Mollie Hunter, The Stronghold
• Cholmondeley Award: D.J. Enright, Vernon Scannell, Alasdair Maclean
• Eric Gregory Award: Duncan Forbes, Roger Garfitt, Robin Hamilton, Frank Ormsby, Penelope Shuttle
• Newdigate prize: Alan Hollinghurst
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, or the Prince of Darkness
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: John Wain, Samuel Johnson
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Ted Hughes

United States

• Frost Medal: John Hall Wheelock
• Hugo Award: Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama
• Nebula Award: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Paula Fox, The Slave Dancer
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Lowell, The Dolphin

Elsewhere

• Miles Franklin Award: Ronald McKie, The Mango Tree
• Premio Nadal: Luis Gasulla, Culminación de Montoya
• Viareggio Prize: Clotilde Marghieri, Amati enigmi