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The year 1980 in literature involved some significant events and new books.






lled by a servant in northern Kenya
Kenya

The Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the northeast, Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, and Sudan to the northwest, with the Indian Ocean running along the southeast border....
).






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The year 1980 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

  • Marguerite Yourcenar
    Marguerite Yourcenar

    Marguerite Yourcenar was a French novelist. She was the first woman elected to the Acad?mie fran?aise in 1980, and the seventeenth to occupy Seat 3....
     becomes the first woman to be elected to the Académie française
    Académie française

    L'Acad?mie fran?aise, or the French Academy, is the pre-eminent France learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Acad?mie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to Louis XIII of France....
    .
  • Kane and Abel
    Kane and Abel (novel)

    Kane and Abel is a 1979 in literature novel by United Kingdom author Jeffrey Archer. The title and story is a play on the Bible brothers, Cain and Abel....
     by Jeffrey Archer (published 1979), reaches #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.


New books

  • Richard Adams
    • The Girl in a Swing
      The Girl in a Swing

      The Girl in a Swing is the fourth novel by Richard Adams , author of Watership Down. It was first published in 1980, with significant editorial changes in subsequent editions....
    • The Iron Wolf and Other Stories
  • Warren Adler
    Warren Adler

    Warren Adler is an United States novelist.Adler graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School and New York University, where he majored in English literature following which he worked for a New York City newspaper....
     - War of the Roses
    The War of The Roses

    The War of the Roses is a novel by Warren Adler....
  • Woody Allen
    Woody Allen

    Woody Allen is an Cinema of the United States film director, writer, actor, comedian, musician and playwright.Allen's distinctive films, which run the gamut from dramas to Screwball comedy film, have made him one of the most respected living American directors....
     - Side Effects
    Side Effects

    Side Effects is an anthology of 17 comical short stories written by Woody Allen between 1975 and 1980, all but one of which were previously published in, variously, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Kenyon Review....
  • Jean M. Auel
    Jean M. Auel

    Jean M. Auel , n?e Jean Marie Untinen is an United States and Finland writer. She is best known for her Earth's Children books, a series of historical fiction novels set in prehistoric Europe that explores interactions of Cro-Magnon people with Neanderthals....
     - The Clan of the Cave Bear
    The Clan of the Cave Bear

    The Clan of the Cave Bear is a historical fiction novel by Jean M. Auel about Prehistory . It is the first in the Earth's Children series that investigates the possibility of Neanderthal and modern Cro-Magnon Homo living near each other at the same time....
  • Anthony Burgess
    Anthony Burgess

    John Burgess Wilson was an England author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic.His Utopian and dystopian fiction satire A Clockwork Orange, widely considered to be his magnum opus, is by far his most famous novel, and was adapted into a famous, if highly controversial, A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick....
     - Earthly Powers
    Earthly Powers

    Earthly Powers is a panoramic saga of the 20th century by Anthony Burgess first published in 1980. On one level it is a parody of a "blockbuster" novel, with the 81-year-old hero, Kenneth Toomey , telling the story of his life in 81 chapters....
  • Ramsey Campbell
    Ramsey Campbell

    John Ramsey Campbell is an England horror fiction author.Since he first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: T....
    , editor - New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
    Cthulhu Mythos anthology

    A Cthulhu Mythos anthology is a type of short story collection that contains stories written in or related to the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction launched by H....
  • Bruce Chatwin
    Bruce Chatwin

    Bruce Charles Chatwin was an England novelist and travel writer....
     - The Viceroy of Ouidah
    The Viceroy of Ouidah

    The Viceroy of Ouidah is a novel published in 1980 by Bruce Chatwin, about the life of a African slave trade named Francisco Manuel da Silva, loosely based on the life of an historical Brazilian, Francisco Felix de Sousa, who became a powerful personage in Wydah or Ouidah, the so-called Slave Coast of West Africa, now Benin and Togo....
  • Mary Higgins Clark
    Mary Higgins Clark

    Mary Higgins Clark, n?e Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins , is an United Statesn author of psychological thriller. Each of her twenty-four books has been a bestseller in the United States and various Europe, and all of her novels remain in print as of 2007, with her debut suspense novel, Where Are The Children, in its seventy-fifth print...
     - The Cradle Will Fall
  • Larry Collins
    Larry Collins

    Larry Collins may refer to:* Larry Collins , author of several historical books, mainly in collaboration with Dominique Lapierre * Larry Collins , one of The Collins Kids, a juvenile rockabilly duo....
     and Dominique Lapierre
    Dominique Lapierre

    Dominique Lapierre is a France author....
     -The Fifth Horseman
    The Fifth Horseman

    The Fifth Horseman may refer to:* The Fifth Horseman , a novel by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre* The 5th Horseman, a novel by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro...
  • Basil Copper
    Basil Copper

    Basil Copper is an English people writer and former journalist and newspaper editor. He has written over fifty books and scripts. In addition to Fantasy fiction and Horror fiction, Copper is known for his series of Solar Pons stories continuting the character created by August Derleth, although tensions between Copper and the Estate of Aug...
     -Necropolis
    Necropolis (novel)

    Necropolis is a Gothic novel by author Basil Copper. It was published by Arkham House in in 1980 in literature in an edition of 4,050 copies....
  • L. Sprague de Camp
    L. Sprague de Camp

    Lyon Sprague de Camp, was an USA science fiction authors and fantasy authors and biographer. In a writing career spanning sixty years he wrote over one hundred books, including novels and notable works of nonfiction, such as biographies of other important fantasy authors....
    • Conan and the Spider God
      Conan and the Spider God

      Conan and the Spider God is a 1980 fantasy novel written by L. Sprague de Camp featuring Robert E. Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian....
    • The Purple Pterodactyls
      The Purple Pterodactyls

      The Purple Pterodactyls is a 1980 collection of short stories by science fiction and fantasy author L. Sprague de Camp, first published in hardcover by Phantasia Press and in paperback by Ace Books....
  • Thomas M. Disch
    Thomas M. Disch

    Thomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction author and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book in 1999, and he had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W....
     - The Brave Little Toaster
    The Brave Little Toaster

    The Brave Little Toaster is a novel by Thomas M. Disch intended for children or as put by Disch, A Bedtime Story for Small Appliances....
  • E. L. Doctorow
    E. L. Doctorow

    Edgar Lawrence Doctorow is an USA author whose critically acclaimed and award-winning fiction ranges through his country?s social history from the American Civil War to the present....
     - In Loon Lake
  • Allan W. Eckert
    Allan W. Eckert

    Allan W. Eckert is an United States historical novelist and Natural history....
     - Song of the Wild
  • Umberto Eco
    Umberto Eco

    Umberto Eco is an Italy medievalist, Semiotics, philosopher, Literary criticism and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory....
     - The Name of the Rose
    The Name of the Rose

    The Name of the Rose, a novel by Umberto Eco, is a historical whodunnit ? a murder mystery set in an Italy monastery in the year 1327. It is an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory....
  • Ken Follett
    Ken Follett

    'Ken Follett' is a United Kingdom author of Thriller s and historical novels. He has sold a total of List of best-selling fiction authors and has authored numerous bestselling works, such as The Key to Rebecca, Lie Down with Lions, A Dangerous Fortune, The Man from St....
     - The Key to Rebecca
    The Key to Rebecca

    The Key to Rebecca is a novel by United Kingdom author Ken Follett. Published in 1980 by Pan Books , it was a noted bestseller that achieved popularity both in the United Kingdom and worldwide....
  • Frederick Forsyth
    Frederick Forsyth

    Frederick Forsyth, Order of the British Empire is an England author and occasional political commentator. He is best known for thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Dogs of War , The Fist of God, Icon , The Veteran , Avenger and recently The Afghan....
     - The Devil's Alternative
    The Devil's Alternative

    The Devil's Alternative is a novel by Frederick Forsyth first published in 1979. It was his fourth full-length fictional novel and marked a new direction in his work, setting the story several years in the future rather than in the recent past....
  • Mary Jayne Gold
    Mary Jayne Gold

    Mary Jayne Gold was an American heiress who played an important role helping European Jews and intellectuals escape Nazi Germany in 1940-41, during World War II....
     - Crossroads Marseilles 1940
  • Douglas Hill
    Douglas Hill

    Douglas Arthur Hill was a Canada science fiction author, Editing and reviewer. He was born in Brandon, Manitoba, Manitoba, the son of a train driver, and raised in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan....
     - Deathwing Over Veynaa
    Deathwing Over Veynaa

    Deathwing Over Veynaa is a Young-adult fiction science fiction novel by Douglas Hill, first published in 1980 in literature. It is the second book in the Last Legionary series which has been described as a simplified version of E....
  • Douglas Hill
    Douglas Hill

    Douglas Arthur Hill was a Canada science fiction author, Editing and reviewer. He was born in Brandon, Manitoba, Manitoba, the son of a train driver, and raised in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan....
     - Day of the Starwind
    Day of the Starwind

    Day of the Starwind is a Young-adult fiction science fiction novel by Douglas Hill first published in 1980 in literature. It is the third book in the Last Legionary series which has been described as a simplified version of E....
  • Robert E. Howard
    Robert E. Howard

    This article is about writer Robert E. Howard. For the Medal of Honor recipient, try Robert L. Howard.Robert Ervin Howard was an United States author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres....
     and L. Sprague de Camp
    L. Sprague de Camp

    Lyon Sprague de Camp, was an USA science fiction authors and fantasy authors and biographer. In a writing career spanning sixty years he wrote over one hundred books, including novels and notable works of nonfiction, such as biographies of other important fantasy authors....
     - The Treasure of Tranicos
    The Treasure of Tranicos (collection)

    The Treasure of Tranicos is a 1980 collection of one fantasy short story written by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp featuring Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian, together with essays by de Camp on the title story and on Howard....
  • L. Ron Hubbard
    L. Ron Hubbard

    Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was an American science fiction writer who devised a self-help system called Dianetics, first published in 1950, which he developed over the next three decades into a set of doctrines and rituals he called Scientology....
     - Battlefield Earth
    Battlefield Earth (novel)

    Battlefield Earth is a science fiction novel written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard in celebration of 50 years as a writer. He also composed a soundtrack to the book called Space Jazz....
  • P. D. James
    P. D. James

    Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, Order of the British Empire, Royal Society of Arts, Royal Society of Literature , commonly known as P....
     - Innocent Blood
    Innocent Blood (novel)

    Innocent Blood is a mystery novel by P. D. James....
  • Stephen King
    Stephen King

    Stephen Edwin King is an United States author of contemporary horror fiction, fantasy fiction and science fiction.Having sold an estimated List of bestselling fiction authors of his books, King is best known for his work in horror fiction, in which he demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the genre's history....
     - Firestarter
    Firestarter

    Firestarter is a novel by Stephen King originally published in 1980. It was serialized in Omni magazine prior to being published....
  • Judith Krantz
    Judith Krantz

    Judith Krantz , is an United States novelist who writes in the romance novel genre. Her works include Princess Daisy and Till We Meet Again ....
     - Princess Daisy
    Princess Daisy (novel)

    Princess Daisy is a 1980 in literature romance novel by United States author Judith Krantz....
  • Björn Kurtén
    Björn Kurtén

    Bj?rn Olof Lennartson Kurt?n was a distinguished vertebrate paleontologist. He belonged to the Swedish-speaking Finns minority in Finland. He was also the author of an acclaimed series of books about modern man's encounter with Neanderthals, such as Dance of the Tiger ....
     - Dance of the Tiger
    Dance of the Tiger

    Dance of the Tiger is a short novel, published in English in 1980, by palaeontologist Bj?rn Kurt?n that deals with the interaction between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons....
  • John le Carré
    John le Carré

    John le Carr? is an English author of spy fiction, several of which have been adapted for film and television. He worked for MI5 and MI6 in the 1950s and 1960s, before leaving the secret service to devote himself to writing after the success of The Spy Who Came In from the Cold....
     - Smiley's People
    Smiley's People

    Smiley's People is a spy novel by John le Carr?, published in 1979. Featuring British master-spy George Smiley, it is the third and final novel of the "Karla Trilogy," following Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Honourable Schoolboy....
  • Madeleine L'Engle
    Madeleine L'Engle

    Madeleine L'Engle was an United States writer best known for her Young-adult fiction, particularly the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time....
     - A Ring of Endless Light
    A Ring of Endless Light

    A Ring of Endless Light is a 1980 novel by Madeleine L'Engle. The book tells of a girl named Vicky and her struggle to understand life and significance in the universe as she deals with her dying grandfather, while at the same time finding love....
  • Robert Ludlum
    Robert Ludlum

    Robert Ludlum was an United States author of 25 Thriller novels. There are more than 290 million copies of his books in print, and they have been translated into 32 languages....
     - The Bourne Identity
  • Ruth Manning-Sanders
    Ruth Manning-Sanders

    Ruth Manning-Sanders was a England poet and author who was perhaps best known for her series of children's books in which she collected and retold fairy tales from all over the world....
     - A Book of Spooks and Spectres
    A Book of Spooks and Spectres

    A Book of Spooks and Spectres is a 1980 anthology of 23 fairy tales from around the world that have been collected and retold by Ruth Manning-Sanders....
  • James A. Michener
    James A. Michener

    James Albert Michener was an United States author of more than 40 titles, the majority of which are novels of sweeping sagas, covering the lives of many generations in a particular geographic locale and incorporating historical facts into the story as well....
     - The Covenant
  • Robert B. Parker
    Robert B. Parker

    Robert B. Parker is an acclaimed United States crime writer. His most famous works are the Spenser series, which achieved a far wider audience due to being dramatized as a television series, Spenser: For Hire, on the American Broadcasting Company network during the late 1980s....
     - Looking for Rachel Wallace
  • Belva Plain
    Belva Plain

    Belva Plain is a best-seller United States author of mainstream women's fiction. She was born in New York City, New York...
     - Random Winds
  • Marin Preda
    Marin Preda

    Marin Preda was a Romanian novelist, often considered the best of post-WWII Romania.Preda was born in Silistea Gumesti village, Teleorman county, into a family of peasants....
     - Cel mai iubit dintre pamânteni
    Cel mai iubit dintre pamânteni

    Cel mai iubit dintre pam?nteni is the last, and perhaps most elaborate, novel by the Romanian author Marin Preda. Written in 1980 in literature, it is an intricate fresco of Communist Romania and the horrors of Stalinism era....
     (The Most Beloved of Earthlings)
  • Herman Raucher
    Herman Raucher

    Herman Raucher is an American author who has written several novels and screenplays, among them the popular Summer of '42 and The Great Santini....
     - There Should Have Been Castles
    There Should Have Been Castles

    There Should have been Castles is a 1980 romantic comedy novel by Herman Raucher. It is a roman a clef, with Raucher acknowledging that the male and female main characters are based on him and his wife, to whom he had been married for twenty years at the time of the book's publication....
  • Mordecai Richler
    Mordecai Richler

    Mordecai Richler, Order of Canada was a Canada author, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and essayist. A leading critic called him "the great shining star of his Canadian literary generation" and a pivotal figure in the country's history....
     - Joshua Then and Now
    Joshua Then and Now

    'Joshua Then and Now' is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Mordecai Richler, first published in 1980 by McClelland and Stewart. Richler adapted it into the feature film Joshua Then and Now , starring James Woods, Alan Arkin, and Gabrielle Lazure; directed by Ted Kotcheff who had previously directed Richler's The Apprenticeshi...
  • Marilynne Robinson
    Marilynne Robinson

    Marilynne Robinson is an United States author. Her 1980 novel Housekeeping won a Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for best first novel and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction....
     - Housekeeping
    Housekeeping (novel)

    Housekeeping is a novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson. It was published in 1980 in literature, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction ...
  • Salman Rushdie
    Salman Rushdie

    Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a British Indian novelist and essayist. He first achieved fame with his second novel, Midnight's Children , which won the Booker Prize in 1981....
     - Midnight's Children
    Midnight's Children

    Midnight's Children is a 1981 novel by Salman Rushdie. It centres on the author's native India and was acclaimed as a major milestone in postcolonial literature....
  • Sidney Sheldon
    Sidney Sheldon

    Sidney Sheldon was an Academy Award-winning American writer who won awards in three careers-a Broadway theatre playwright, a Hollywood TV and movie screenwriter, and a best-selling novelist....
     - Rage of Angels
    Rage of Angels

    Rage of Angels is a 1980 novel by Sidney Sheldon....
  • Gay Talese
    Gay Talese

    Gay Talese is an American author. He wrote for The New York Times in the early 1960s and helped to define literary journalism or "new nonfiction reportage", also known as New Journalism....
     - Thy Neighbor's Wife
    Thy Neighbor's Wife

    Thy Neighbor's Wife is a non-fiction book by Gay Talese, published in 1981.An exploration of early-1950s sexuality in America, with notable discussion of the free love subculture, it provides an interesting snapshot of liberated pre-AIDS sexual morality....
  • John Kennedy Toole
    John Kennedy Toole

    John Kennedy Toole was an United States novelist from New Orleans, Louisiana, best known for his Pulitzer Prize for Fiction-winning novel A Confederacy of Dunces....
     - A Confederacy of Dunces
    A Confederacy of Dunces

    A Confederacy of Dunces is a novel written by John Kennedy Toole, published in 1980 in literature, 11 years after the author's suicide. The book was published through the efforts of writer Walker Percy and Toole's mother Thelma Toole, quickly becoming a Cult following, and later a mainstream success....
  • Gene Wolfe
    Gene Wolfe

    Gene Wolfe is an United States science fiction and fantasy writer. He is noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith, to which he converted after marrying a Catholic....
     - The Shadow of the Torturer
    The Shadow of the Torturer

    The Shadow of the Torturer is a science fiction novel by Gene Wolfe, first released in 1980. It is the first volume in the four-volume series, The Book of the New Sun....
  • Roger Zelazny
    Roger Zelazny

    Roger Joseph Zelazny was an United States writer of fantasy and science fiction short story and novels. He won the Nebula award three times and the Hugo award six times , including two Hugos for novels: the serialized novel ...And Call Me Conrad and the novel Lord of Light ....
    • Changeling
    • The Last Defender of Camelot
      The Last Defender of Camelot

      The Last Defender of Camelot is an anthology of short story written by science fiction/fantasy fiction writer Roger Zelazny....


New drama

  • Howard Brenton
    Howard Brenton

    Howard John Brenton is an English playwright. He was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, on 13 December, 1942, son of Donald Henry Brenton and his wife Rose Lilian ....
     - The Romans in Britain
    The Romans in Britain

    The Romans in Britain is a stage play by Howard Brenton that comments upon imperialism and the abuse of power.A cast of thirty actors play sixty roles....
  • Kenneth Ross
    Kenneth Ross

    Kenneth Ross is the Scottish-American screenwriter of the films The Day of the Jackal , The Odessa File, etc.External links...
     - Breaker Morant
    Breaker Morant

    Harry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant was an England-Australian Drover , horseman, poet, and soldier whose renowned skill with horses earned him the nickname "The Breaker." Articulate, intelligent, and well-educated, he was also a published poet and became one of the better-known "back-block bards" of the 1890s, with the bulk of his work appearin...
  • Willy Russell
    Willy Russell

    William Russell is a British dramatist, lyricist, and composer. His best-known works are Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine, and Blood Brothers ....
     - Educating Rita
    Educating Rita

    Educating Rita is a stage comedy by British playwright Willy Russell. It is a play for two actors set entirely in the office of an Open University lecturer....
  • Sam Shepard
    Sam Shepard

    Samuel Shepard Rogers III is an American playwright, and actor, director of stage and film. He is author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play, Buried Child....
     - True West
    True West (play)

    True West is a play by United States playwright Sam Shepard. Like most of his works it is inspired by myths of American life and popular culture....


Poetry

  • Oxford Book of Contemporary Verse
    Oxford Book of Contemporary Verse

    The Oxford Book of Contemporary Verse, edited by D. J. Enright, is a poetry anthology from 1980 in poetry, published by Oxford University Press....


Non-fiction

  • Pierre Berton
    Pierre Berton

    Pierre Francis De Marigny Berton, Order of Canada, Order of Ontario was a noted Canada author of non-fiction, especially Canadiana and Canadian history, and was a well-known television personality and journalist....
     - The Invasion of Canada
    The Invasion of Canada

    The Invasion of Canada is a 1980 book by Pierre Berton.The book is an account of the first year of the War of 1812, and the events leading up to it....
  • Graham Chapman
    Graham Chapman

    Graham Arthur Chapman was a UK comedian, actor, writer, physician and one of the six members of the Monty Python comedy troupe. He was also the lead actor in their two narrative films, playing King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the title character in Monty Python's Life of Brian....
     et al - A Liar's Autobiography
    A Liar's Autobiography

    A Liar's Autobiography is a mostly true, though outlandishly told, accounting of the life of Graham Chapman of Monty Python fame. First published in United Kingdom in 1980, it was republished in 1999 ....
  • L. Sprague de Camp
    L. Sprague de Camp

    Lyon Sprague de Camp, was an USA science fiction authors and fantasy authors and biographer. In a writing career spanning sixty years he wrote over one hundred books, including novels and notable works of nonfiction, such as biographies of other important fantasy authors....
     - The Ragged Edge of Science
    The Ragged Edge of Science

    The Ragged Edge of Science is a science book by L. Sprague de Camp, illustrated by Don Simpson . It was first published by Owlswick Press in 1980....
  • L. Sprague de Camp
    L. Sprague de Camp

    Lyon Sprague de Camp, was an USA science fiction authors and fantasy authors and biographer. In a writing career spanning sixty years he wrote over one hundred books, including novels and notable works of nonfiction, such as biographies of other important fantasy authors....
    , editor - The Spell of Conan
    The Spell of Conan

    The Spell of Conan is a 1980 collection of essays, poems and fiction edited by L. Sprague de Camp, published in paperback by Ace Books. The material was originally published as articles in George H....
  • Jerry Hopkins
    Jerry Hopkins

    Jerry Hopkins is an American author and journalist.He is best known as the co-author of No One Here Gets Out Alive , the definitive biography of Jim Morrison of The Doors, which was a key source for Oliver Stone's film about the band....
     & Danny Sugerman
    Danny Sugerman

    Daniel Stephen Sugerman was the second manager of the Los Angeles based rock band The Doors, and wrote several books about Jim Morrison and The Doors, including No One Here Gets Out Alive co-authored with Jerry Hopkins, and the autobiography Wonderland Avenue....
     - No One Here Gets Out Alive
    No One Here Gets Out Alive

    No One Here Gets Out Alive was the first biography of Jim Morrison, lead singer and lyricist of the L.A. rock band The Doors, written after his death by journalist Jerry Hopkins, with later "insider" information added by Danny Sugerman....
  • Michael Medved
    Michael Medved

    Michael Medved is an United States radio personality and is a pundit , film critic, and author. He identifies himself as Conservatism in the United States....
     & Harry Medved - The Golden Turkey Awards
    The Golden Turkey Awards

    The Golden Turkey Awards is a 1980 book by film critic Michael Medved and his brother Harry Medved. This book is credited with giving the movie Plan 9 from Outer Space by Edward D....
  • Carl Sagan
    Carl Sagan

    Carl Edward Sagan, Ph.D. was an United States astronomer, Astrochemistry, author, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences....
     - Cosmos
    Cosmos (book)

    Cosmos , published by Random House, is a book by Carl Sagan based on his TV series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. It is similarly structured to the TV series and contains most of the information from the series , and some information not found in it....
     
  • Alvin Toffler
    Alvin Toffler

    Alvin Toffler is an United States writer and futures studies, known for his works discussing the digital revolution, communications revolution, corporate revolution and technological singularity....
     - The Third Wave
    The Third Wave (book)

    The Third Wave is a book published in 1980 by Alvin Toffler. It is the sequel to Future Shock, published in 1970, and the second in a trilogy that was completed with Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century in 1990....


Births


Deaths

  • January 3 - Joy Adamson
    Joy Adamson

    Joy Adamson was a naturalist and author, best known for her book, Born Free , which described her experiences in raising Elsa the Lioness from cub to lioness....
    , conservationist and author of Born Free
    Born Free

    Born Free is an Open Road Films Ltd./Columbia Pictures feature film starring Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers as Joy Adamson and George Adamson, a real-life couple who raised an orphaned lion cub to adulthood, and released her into the wilds of Kenya....
(killed by a servant in northern Kenya
Kenya

The Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the northeast, Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, and Sudan to the northwest, with the Indian Ocean running along the southeast border....
).
  • January 3 - G. S. Fraser
    G. S. Fraser

    George Sutherland Fraser was a Scotland poet, literary critic and academic. He was born in Glasgow, later moving with his family to Aberdeen. He went to the University of St....
    , poet and critic
  • January 11 - Barbara Pym
    Barbara Pym

    Barbara Mary Crampton Pym was an England novelist....
    , novelist
  • March 25 - James Wright
    James Wright (poet)

    James Arlington Wright was a Pulitzer Prize-winning United States poet.Wright first emerged on the literary scene in 1956 with The Green Wall, a collection of formalist verse that was awarded the prestigious Yale Younger Poets Prize....
    , poet
  • April 15 - Jean-Paul Sartre
    Jean-Paul Sartre

    Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre , commonly known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre , was a French existentialism philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism....
    , philosopher, novelist and dramatist
  • June 7 - Henry Miller
    Henry Miller

    Henry Valentine Miller was an United States novelist and Painting. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of...
    , writer
  • July 1 - C. P. Snow
    C. P. Snow

    Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow Order of the British Empire was an England physicist and novelist, who also served several important positions in the Government of the United Kingdom....
    , novelist
  • July 9 - Vinicius de Moraes
    Vinicius de Moraes

    Vinicius de Moraes, nicknamed O Poetinha , born Marcus Vinicius da Cruz de Mello Moraes in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, son of Lydia Cruz de Moraes and Clodoaldo Pereira da Silva Moraes....
    , poet and songwriter
  • July 26 - Kenneth Tynan
    Kenneth Tynan

    Kenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial United Kingdom theatre critic and writer....
    , influential theatre critic
  • September 18 - Katherine Anne Porter
    Katherine Anne Porter

    Katherine Anne Porter was a Pulitzer Prize-winning United States journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist. She is known for her penetrating insight; her works deal with dark themes such as betrayal, death and the origin of human evil....
    , novelist and essayist
  • November 9 - Patrick Campbell
    Patrick Campbell, 3rd Baron Glenavy

    Patrick Gordon Campbell, 3rd Baron Glenavy , better known simply as Patrick Campbell, was a Republic of Ireland journalist, humorist and television personality....
    , journalist and wit
  • November 22 - Mae West
    Mae West

    Mae West was an United States actor, playwright, screenwriter, and sex symbol.Known for her bawdy double entendres, West made a name for herself in Vaudeville and on the theatre in New York City before moving to Hollywood to become a comedienne, actress and writer in the film industry....
    , actress and dramatist
  • December 2 - Romain Gary
    Romain Gary

    Romain Gary was a France novelist, film director, World War II aviator and diplomat....
    , writer
  • December 8 - John Lennon
    John Lennon

    John Winston Ono Lennon, Order of the British Empire was an English Rock music musician, singer, songwriter, artist, and peace activist who gained worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles....
    , musician, author
  • December 12 - Ben Travers
    Ben Travers

    Ben Travers Order of the British Empire was a British playwright most famous for his farces.Born in the London borough of Hendon, Travers was educated at Charterhouse , followed by a brief spell in business....
    , dramatist
  • December 31 - Marshall McLuhan
    Marshall McLuhan

    Herbert Marshall McLuhan, Order of Canada was a Canada educator, philosopher, and scholar ? a professor of English literature, a Literary criticism, a rhetorician, and a Communication theory....
     (author)
  • date unknown - Gareth Evans
    Gareth Evans (philosopher)

    Gareth Evans was a United Kingdom philosopher....
    , philosopher
  • date unknown - Caradog Prichard
    Caradog Prichard

    Caradog Prichard was a Wales poet and novelist writing in Welsh language. His daughter, Mari Prichard, was married to the late Humphrey Carpenter....
    , Welsh-language poet and novelist


Awards

  • Nobel Prize for Literature: Czeslaw Milosz
    Czeslaw Milosz

    Czeslaw Milosz ; was a Poles poet, prose and translator. From 1961 to 1978 he was a professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley....
  • Hugo Award for Best Novel
    Hugo Award for Best Novel

    Winners of the Hugo Award for best science fiction or fantasy novel, along with all the nominees, are presented here. Awards given in one year are for works published during the previous calendar year....
    : Arthur C. Clarke
    Arthur C. Clarke

    Sri Lankabhimanya Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, Order of the British Empire was a British people science fiction author, inventor, and Futurology, most famous for the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey , written in collaboration with director Stanley Kubrick, a collaboration which also produced the 2001: A Space Odyssey ; and as a host and comment...
    , The Fountains of Paradise
    The Fountains of Paradise

    The Fountains of Paradise is a 1979 novel by Arthur C. Clarke. Set in the 22nd century, it describes the construction of a space elevator. This "orbital tower" is a giant structure rising from the ground and linking with a satellite in geostationary orbit at the height of approximately 36,000 kilometers ....


Australia

  • The Australian/Vogel Literary Award
    The Australian/Vogel Literary Award

    The Australian/Vogel Literary Award is an Australian literary award for unpublished manuscripts by writers under the age of 35. The prize money, currently $20,000 , is the richest and most prestigious award for an unpublished manuscript in Australia....
    : Inaugural award to Archie Weller
    Archie Weller

    Archie Weller is an Australian award winning writer of novels, short stories and screen plays.Weller was born in Cranbrook, Western Australia, and grew up on a farm called Woonenup in the Southwest region of Western Australia of that state....
    , The Day Of The Dog, after the award was initially given to Paul Radley, who was disqualified after admitting his manuscript was actually written by his uncle.
  • Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
    Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry

    The Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry is awarded annually as part of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards for a book of collected poems or for a single poem of substantial length published in book form....
    : David Campbell
    David Campbell (poet)

    David Watt Ian Campbell was an Australian poetry#Poetry who wrote over 15 volumes of prose and poetry....
    , Man in the Honeysuckle


Canada

  • See 1980 Governor General's Awards
    1980 Governor General's Awards

    Each winner of the 1980 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit was selected by a panel of judges administered by the Canada Council....
     for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.


France

  • Prix Goncourt
    Prix Goncourt

    The prix Goncourt is a prize in French literature, given to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year".Edmond Louis Antoine Huot de Goncourt, a successful author, critic, and publisher, bequeathed his entire estate for the foundation and maintenance of the acad?mie Goncourt....
    : Yves Navarre
    Yves Navarre

    Yves Navarre was a French writer. A gay man, most of his work concerned homosexuality and associated issues, such as AIDS. In his romantic works, Navarre was noted for his tendency to emphasize sensuality and "the mystical qualities of love" rather than sexuality or sensationalism....
    , Le Jardin d'acclimatation
  • Prix Médicis
    Prix Médicis

    The Prix M?dicis is a France literary award given each year in November. It was founded in 1958 by Gala Barbisan and Jean-Pierre Giraudoux. It is awarded to an author whose "fame does not yet match their talent." In 1970 the Prix M?dicis ?tranger, a foreign prize, was added to award a writer each year from around the world....
     French: Jean-Luc Benoziglio, Cabinet-portrait who refused the prize, thus it was given to Jean Lahougue's Comptine des Height
  • Prix Médicis
    Prix Médicis

    The Prix M?dicis is a France literary award given each year in November. It was founded in 1958 by Gala Barbisan and Jean-Pierre Giraudoux. It is awarded to an author whose "fame does not yet match their talent." In 1970 the Prix M?dicis ?tranger, a foreign prize, was added to award a writer each year from around the world....
     International: Andre Brink
    André Brink

    Andr? Philippus Brink is a South African novelist. He writes in Afrikaans language and English language and is a Professor of English at the University of Cape Town....
    , Une saison blanche et sèche


United Kingdom

  • Booker Prize: William Golding
    William Golding

    Sir William Gerald Golding was a United Kingdom novelist, poet and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate best known for his novel Lord of the Flies....
    , Rites of Passage
  • Cholmondeley Award
    Cholmondeley Award

    The Cholmondeley Award is an annual award for poetry given by the Society of Authors in the United Kingdom. Awards honour distinguished poets, from a fund endowed by the late Marquess of Cholmondeley in 1966....
    : George Barker
    George Barker

    George Barker may refer to:*George Barker was a portrait and landscape painter from the United States*George Barker was an English poet and author...
    , Terence Tiller
    Terence Tiller

    Terence Rogers Tiller was an English poet and radio producer....
    , Roy Fuller
    Roy Fuller

    Roy Broadbent Fuller was an English writer, known mostly as a poet. He was born in Failsworth, near Oldham, in Lancashire, and brought up in Blackpool....
  • Eric Gregory Award
    Eric Gregory Award

    The Eric Gregory Award is given by the Society of Authors to United Kingdom poets under 30 on submission. The awards are up to a sum value of Pound sterling24000 annually....
    : Robert Minhinnick
    Robert Minhinnick

    Robert Minhinnick is a Wales poet, essayist, novelist and translator.Minhinnick was born in Neath, and now lives in Porthcawl. He studied at University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and Cardiff University....
    , Michael Hulse
    Michael Hulse

    Michael Hulse is an England translator, critic, and poet....
    , Blake Morrison
    Blake Morrison

    Philip Blake Morrison is a United Kingdom poet and author who has published in a wide range of fiction and non-fiction genres. His greatest success came with the publication of his memoirs And When Did You Last See Your Father?....
    , Medbh McGuckian
    Medbh McGuckian

    Medbh McGuckian is a poet from Northern Ireland....
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize
    James Tait Black Memorial Prize

    Founded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards....
     for fiction: J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
    Waiting for the Barbarians

    Waiting for the Barbarians is a novel by the North African-born author J. M. Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003. The novel was published in 1980 and is regarded as one of Coetzee's finest pieces of writing....
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize
    James Tait Black Memorial Prize

    Founded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards....
     for biography: Robert B. Martin, Tennyson
    Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

    Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and remains one of the most popular English poets.Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, including "In the valley of Cauteretz", "Break, break, break", "The Charge of the Light Brigade ", "Tears, Idle Tears" and "Crossing the Bar"....
    : The Unquiet Heart
  • Whitbread Best Book Award
    1980 Whitbread Awards

    Book of the Year...
    : David Lodge
    David Lodge (author)

    David John Lodge CBE, is a Great Britain author....
    , How Far Can You Go?
    How Far Can You Go?

    How Far Can You Go? is a novel by United Kingdom writer and academic David Lodge . It was renamed Souls and Bodies when published in the United States....


United States

  • American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama
    American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medals

    Two American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medals are awarded each year by the academy for distinguished achievement. The two awards are taken in rotation from these categories:...
    : Edward Albee
    Edward Albee

    Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright best known for works, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Zoo Story, The Sandbox and The American Dream ....
  • Caldecott Medal
    Caldecott Medal

    The Caldecott Medal is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published that year....
    : Barbara Cooney
    Barbara Cooney

    Barbara Cooney was an American children's author and illustrator of more than 200 books and double Caldecott Medalist. She has written books for six decades....
    , Ox-Cart Man
    Ox-Cart Man

    Ox-Cart Man is the title of a 1979 book written by Donald Hall and illustrated by Barbara Cooney. It won the 1980 Caldecott Medal. The book deals with an 18th century farming family that uses an ox-cart to take their goods to market, where they make the money to buy the things they need....
  • Dos Passos Prize
    Dos Passos Prize

    The John Dos Passos Prize is awarded annually to the best currently under-recognized American writer in the middle of their career.The Prize was founded at Longwood University in 1980 and is meant to honor John Dos Passos by recognizing other writers in his name....
    : Graham Greene
    Graham Greene

    Henry Graham Greene Order of Merit, Order of the Companions of Honour was an English writer best known as a novelist, but who also produced short stories, plays, screenplays, travel writing and criticism....
  • Nebula Award
    Nebula Award

    The Nebula Award is an award given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the two previous years ....
    : Gregory Benford
    Gregory Benford

    Gregory Benford is an American science fiction authors and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine....
    , Timescape
    Timescape

    Timescape is a 1980 novel by science fiction writer Gregory Benford . It won the 1980 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1981 Campbell award ....
  • Newbery Medal
    Newbery Medal

    The John Newbery Medal is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association ....
     for children's literature
    Children's literature

    Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve and is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes exclude young-adult fiction, comic books, or other genres....
    : Joan Blos
    Joan Blos

    Joan W. Blos is a children's author. In 1980, she won the Newbery Medal for A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan....
    , A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal
    A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal

    A Gathering of Days; A New England Girl's Journal is a historical novel by Joan Blos that won the Newbery Medal for excellence in United States of America children's literature in 1980....
  • Pulitzer Prize for Drama
    Pulitzer Prize for Drama

    The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than being the calendar year....
    : Lanford Wilson
    Lanford Wilson

    Lanford Wilson is an American playwright, considered one of the founders of the Off-off Broadway theater movement. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters....
    , Talley's Folly
    Talley's Folly

    Talley's Folly is a 1979 play by American playwright Lanford Wilson, the second in his cycle, The Talley Trilogy between his plays Talley and Son and Fifth of July ....
  • Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
    Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

    The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded since 1948 for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life....
    : Norman Mailer
    Norman Mailer

    Norman Kingsley Mailer was an United States novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S....
    , The Executioner's Song
    The Executioner's Song

    The Executioner's Song is a 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction-winning novel by Norman Mailer that depicts the events surrounding the execution of Gary Gilmore by the state of Utah for murder....
  • Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
    Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

    The Pulitzer Prize in Poetry has been presented since 1922 for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author. However, Pulitzer Prize Special Citations and Awards were presented in 1918 in poetry and 1919 in poetry....
    : Donald Justice
    Donald Justice

    Donald Justice was an American poet and teacher of writing. He graduated from the University of Miami and went on to teach for many years at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the nation's first graduate program in creative writing....
    , Selected Poems


Elsewhere

  • Premio Cervantes : Juan Carlos Onetti
    Juan Carlos Onetti

    Juan Carlos Onetti was a Uruguayan novelist and author of short stories.A high school drop-out, Onetti's first novel, El pozo, published in 1939, met with his close friends' immediate acclaim, as well as from some writers and journalists of his time....
  • Premio Nadal
    Premio Nadal

    Premio Nadal is a Spain literary prize awarded annually by the publishing house Ediciones Destino. It has been awarded every year on January 6 since 1944....
    : Juan Ramón Zaragoza, Concerto grosso