1969 IN LITERATURE

The year '1969 in literature' involved some significant events and new books.

Contents

Events

New books

New drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards

Canada

France

United Kingdom

United States

Elsewhere

Events

★ The first Booker Prize is awarded.

★ "Penelope Ashe", author of the bestselling novel ''Naked Came the Stranger'', is found to be several people who each took a turn writing a chapter of what they described as "''junk''" in order to prove that sex-filled trash sells. It did.

New books

★ Jorge Amado - ''Tenda dos Milagres (''Tent of Miracles'')

★ Kingsley Amis - ''The Green Man''

★ William H. Armstrong - ''Sounder''

★ Penelope Ashe - ''Naked Came the Stranger''

★ Margaret Atwood - ''The Edible Woman''

★ Ray Bradbury - ''I Sing the Body Electric''

★ William S. Burroughs - ''The Last Words of Dutch Schultz''

★ Merton H. Coleman - ''That Godless Woman''

★ March Cost - ''The Veiled Sultan''

★ Michael Crichton - ''The Andromeda Strain''

★ John Cheever - ''Bullet Park''

★ A. J. Cronin - ''A Pocketful of Rye''

★ L. Sprague de Camp - ''The Golden Wind''

★ Marion Eames - ''Y Stafell Ddirgel (The Secret Room)''

★ John Fowles - ''The French Lieutenant's Woman''

★ Graham Greene - ''Travels with My Aunt''

★ Sam Greenlee - ''The Spook Who Sat By The Door''

★ Frank Herbert - ''Dune Messiah''

★ Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter - ''Conan of Cimmeria''

★ David H. Keller - ''The Folsom Flint and Other Curious Tales''

★ Elmore Leonard - ''The Big Bounce''

★ H.P. Lovecraft and Others - ''Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos''

★ Yukio Mishima - ''Runaway Horses''

★ Michael Moorcock - ''Behold the Man''

★ C. L. Moore - ''Jirel of Joiry''

★ Vladimir Nabokov - ''

★ Don Pendleton - ''War Against The Mafia''

★ Chaim Potok - ''The Promise''

★ Manuel Puig - ''Little Painted Mouths''

★ Mario Puzo - ''The Godfather''

★ Ellery Queen - ''The Campus Murders''

★ Pauline Réage - ''Retour à Roissy''

★ Mordecai Richler - ''The Street''

★ Harold Robbins - ''The Inheritors''

★ Philip Roth - ''Portnoy's Complaint''

★ Irwin Shaw - ''Rich Man, Poor Man''

★ Raymond Spence - ''Nothing Black But A Cadillac''

★ Edward Streeter - ''Ham Martin, Class of '17''

★ Jacqueline Susann - ''The Love Machine''

★ Theodore Taylor - ''The Cay''

★ Colin Thiele - ''Blue Fin''

★ Jack Vance

★
★ ''The Dirdir''

★
★ ''Emphyrio''

★
★ ''Servants of the Wankh''

★ Kurt Vonnegut - ''Slaughterhouse-Five''

★ Irving Wallace - ''The Seven Minutes''

★ Roger Zelazny

★
★ ''Creatures of Light and Darkness''

★
★ ''Damnation Alley''

★
★ ''Isle of the Dead''

New drama

★ Athol Fugard - ''Boesman and Lena''

★ Joe Orton - ''What the Butler Saw'' (posthumously published)

★ Dennis Potter - ''Son of Man'' (television)

Poetry

★ James Schuyler - ''Freely Espousing''

Non-fiction

★ Maya Angelou - ''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings''.

★ L. Sprague de Camp and George H. Scithers, editors - ''The Conan Swordbook''.

★ Antonia Fraser - ''Mary Queen of Scots''.

★ Peter Geach - ''God and the Soul''.

★ Desmond Morris - ''The Human Zoo''

Births

★ January - David Mitchell, novelist

★ January 17 - Michael Moynihan, journalist and publisher

★ May 6 - Emmanuel Larcenet, comics author

★ November 13 - John Belluso, dramatist

★ ''date unknown''

★
★ David Auburn, dramatist

★
★ Adrian Goldsworthy, military historian

★
★ John Harris, journalist

Deaths

★ January 11 - Richmal Crompton, author

★ March 11 - John Wyndham, British author

★ March 26 - John Kennedy Toole, author

★ March 27 - B. Traven, writer

★ May 4 - Osbert Sitwell, novelist, poet, brother of Edith Sitwell and Sacheverell Sitwell

★ July 24 - Witold Gombrowicz, playwright and novelist

★ August 14 - Leonard Woolf, political theorist and husband of Virginia Woolf

★ September 6 - Gavin Maxwell, naturalist and author

★ September 20 - Elinor Brent-Dyer, ''Chalet School'' author

★ October 21 - Jack Kerouac, author

★ ''date unknown'' - Vivian de Sola Pinto, poet and memoirist

★ ''date unknown'' - Greye La Spina, writer

Awards

★ Nobel Prize for Literature: Samuel Beckett

Canada

★ See 1969 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

★ Prix Goncourt: Félicien Marceau, ''Creezy''

★ Prix Médicis: Hélène Cixous, ''Dedans''

United Kingdom

★ Booker Prize: P. H. Newby - ''Something to Answer For''

★ Cholmondeley Award: Derek Walcott, Tony Harrison

★ Eric Gregory Award: Gavin Bantock, Jeremy Hooker, Jenny King, Neil Powell, Landeg E. White

★ Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Stevie Smith

United States

★ American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Tennessee Williams

★ Hugo Award: John Brunner, ''Stand on Zanzibar''

★ Nebula Award: Ursula K. Le Guin, ''The Left Hand of Darkness''

★ Newbery Medal for children's literature: Lloyd Alexander, ''The High King''

★ Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Howard Sackler, ''The Great White Hope''

★ Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: N. Scott Momaday - ''House Made of Dawn''

★ Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: George Oppen: ''Of Being Numerous''

Elsewhere

★ Premio Nadal: Francisco García Pavón (''Las hermanas coloradas''

★ Viareggio Prize: Fulvio Tomizza, ''L'albero dei sogni''