1985 in literature

Events

• February 25 – Sue Limb's parodic pastiche of the Lake Poets, The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere, begins broadcasting on BBC Radio 4 in the U.K.
• March 1 – The GNU Manifesto by Richard Stallman is published for the first time, and becomes a fundamental philosophical source within the free software movement.
• August 11 – A memorial to the poet Hugh MacDiarmid is unveiled near his home at Langholm, Scotland.
• unknown dates – Three notable novels in English by female authors are published during the year: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Jilly Cooper's Riders, the first of the Rutshire Chronicles, and Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.

New books

Fiction

• Isaac Asimov – Robots and Empire
• Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid's Tale
• Jean M. Auel – The Mammoth Hunters
• Iain Banks – Walking on Glass
• Clive Barker – The Damnation Game
• Greg Bear
  • Blood Music
  • Eon
• M. C. Beaton – Death of a Gossip
• Thomas Bernhard – Old Masters: a comedy (Alte Meister: Komödie)
• Anthony Burgess – The Kingdom of the Wicked
• Orson Scott Card – Ender's Game
• Jilly Cooper – Riders
• Bernard Cornwell – Sharpe's Honour
• Don DeLillo – White Noise
• Friedrich Dürrenmatt – The Execution of Justice (Justiz)
• Bret Easton Ellis – Less than Zero
• John Fowles – A Maggot
• Carlos Fuentes – The Old Gringo (Gringo Viejo)
• William Gaddis – Carpenter's Gothic
• Gabriel García Márquez – Love in the Time of Cholera (El amor en los tiempos del cólera)
• Alasdair Gray – The Fall of Kelvin Walker: A Fable of the Sixties
• Graham Greene – The Tenth Man
• Amy Hempel – *Reasons to Live *
• Frank Herbert – Chapterhouse: Dune
• John Irving – The Cider House Rules
• Garrison Keillor – Lake Wobegon Days
• Stephen King – Skeleton Crew
• László Krasznahorkai – Satantango
• Ursula K. Le Guin – Always Coming Home
• Doris Lessing – The Good Terrorist
• Cormac McCarthy – Blood Meridian
• Larry McMurtry – Lonesome Dove
• John D. MacDonald – The Lonely Silver Rain
• James A. Michener – Texas
• Brian Moore – Black Robe
• Iris Murdoch – The Good Apprentice
• Ellis Peters – An Excellent Mystery
• Caryl Phillips – The Final Passage
• Carl Sagan – Contact
• Sidney Sheldon – If Tomorrow Comes
• Sue Townsend – Rebuilding Coventry
• Anne Tyler – The Accidental Tourist
• Andrew Vachss – Flood
• Kurt Vonnegut – Galápagos
• Jeanette Winterson – Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
• Roger Zelazny – Trumps of Doom

Children and young people

• Chester Aaron – Out of Sight, Out of Mind
• Pamela Allen – A Lion in the Night
• Chris Van Allsburg – The Polar Express
• Frank Asch – I Can Blink
• Robert Cormier – Beyond the Chocolate War
• Roald Dahl – The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me
• Virginia Hamilton (with Leo and Diane Dillon) – The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales
• Patricia MacLachlan – Sarah, Plain and Tall
• Laura Numeroff – If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
• Pat O'Shea – The Hounds of the Morrigan
• Cynthia Rylant – A Blue-Eyed Daisy
• Jacqueline Wilson – How to Survive Summer Camp (novel)
• Elizabeth Winthrop – The Castle in the Attic

Drama

• Peter Brook and Jean-Claude Carrière (adapted) – Mahabharata
• Christopher Hampton (adapted) – Les Liaisons Dangereuses
• David Hare and Howard Brenton – Pravda
• Wallace Shawn – Aunt Dan and Lemon
• Sam Shepard – A Lie of the Mind
• Neil Simon – Biloxi Blues
• August Wilson – Fences

Poetry

• Carol Ann Duffy – Standing Female Nude

Non-fiction

• Bill Bryson – The Palace under the Alps and Over 200 Other Unusual, Unspoiled and Infrequently Visited Spots in 16 European Countries
• Roger Caron – Bingo! The Horrifying Eyewitness Account of a Prison Riot
• Allen Carr – The Easy Way to Stop Smoking
• Michael Denton – Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
• Elaine Dundy – Elvis and Gladys
• Julien Gracq – The Shape of a City
• G. L. Harriss (editor) – Henry V: The Practice of Kingship
• Ernest Hemingway – *The Dangerous Summer *
• David Lowenthal – The Past Is a Foreign Country
• Walter A. McDougall – ...The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age
• Tim O'Brien – The Nuclear Age
• Priscilla Beaulieu Presley – Elvis and Me
• David Robinson – Chaplin: His Life and Art
• Oliver Sacks – The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
• Roger Scruton – Thinkers of the New Left
• Gary Soto – Living Up the Street

Births

• February 7 - Justina Ireland, American science-fiction and fantasy author of young-adult fiction
• April 24 – Alexander Zeldin, British playwright and director
• September 24 – Eleanor Catton, New Zealand novelist
• September 30 – Téa Obreht, Yugoslav-born American novelist writing in English
• Alisa Ganieva, Russian fiction writer and critic

Deaths

• January 1 – Sigerson Clifford, Irish poet, playwright, and civil servant (born 1913)
• January 5 – Alexis Rannit, Estonian-born American poet and critic (born 1914)
• February 6 – James Hadley Chase, English thriller novelist (born 1906)
• February 19 – Carl Joachim Hambro, Norwegian novelist, essayist and philologist (born 1914)
• March 15 – Radha Krishna Choudhary, Indian historian and philosopher (born 1921)
• April 4 – Kate Roberts, Welsh writer (born 1891)
• April 7 – Carl Schmitt, German political theorist (born 1888)
• April 17
  • Basil Bunting, English poet (born 1900)
  • D. I. Suchianu, Romanian essayist, translator, social scientist and film theorist (born 1895)
• April 25 – Uku Masing, Estonian religious philosopher, linguist and writer (born 1909)
• May 1 – Denise Robins, English romantic novelist (born 1897)
• May 12 – Josephine Miles, American poet and literary critic (born 1911)
• May 18 – Hedley Bull, Australian economist (cancer, born 1932)
• May 25 – Robert Nathan, American novelist and poet (born 1894)
• June 8 – Hu Feng (胡风), Chinese novelist (born 1902)
• June 16 – Ernst Orvil, Norwegian novelist, poet and playwright (born 1898)
• July 16 – Heinrich Böll, German novelist, Nobel laureate (born 1917)
• July 8 – Leslie Paul, Anglo-Irish novelist (born 1905)
• July 29 – Judah Waten, Australian novelist (born 1911)
• August 14 – Alfred Hayes, English-born American novelist, poet and screenwriter (born 1911)
• August 30 – (Janet) Taylor Caldwell, English-born American novelist (born 1900)
• September 1 – Saunders Lewis, Welsh writer and broadcaster (Plaid Cymru) (born 1893)
• September 17 – Fran Ross, African American satirist (born 1935)
• September 22 – D. J. Opperman, South African Afrikaans poet (born 1914)
• September 27 – Leonard Gribble, English novelist (born 1908)
• October 1 – E. B. White, American children's writer and writer on style (born 1899)
• October 11 – Alex La Guma, South African novelist and political activist (born 1925)
• October 24 – László Bíró, Hungarian journalist and inventor (born 1899)
• October 31 – Nikos Engonopoulos, Greek poet (born 1903)
• November 3 – J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, English historian (born 1916)
• November 4 – Hilda Vaughan, Welsh novelist and short story writer (born 1892)
• November 6 – Sara Woods, British crime fiction writer (born 1922)
• November 11 – James Hanley, English-born novelist and dramatist of Irish extraction (born 1897)
• November 25
  • Geoffrey Grigson, English poet and critic (born 1905)
  • Elsa Morante, Italian novelist (born 1912)
• November 27 – Fernand Braudel, French historian (born 1902)
• December 2 – Philip Larkin, English poet (born 1922)
• December 5 – Mihail Celarianu, Romanian poet and novelist (born 1893)
• December 7 – Robert Graves, English novelist, poet and critic (born 1895)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Claude Simon

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: no award given out this year
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Kevin Hart, Your Shadow; Rosemary Dobson, The Three Fates
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, Kevin Hart, Your Shadow
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Doris Brett, The Truth about Unicorns
• Miles Franklin Award: Christopher Koch, The Doubleman

Canada

• See 1985 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Yann Queffélec, Les Noces barbares
• Prix Médicis French: Michel Braudeau, Naissance d'une passion
• Prix Médicis International: Joseph Heller, God Knows

Spain

• Miguel de Cervantes Prize: Gonzalo Torrente Ballester

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Keri Hulme, The Bone People
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Kevin Crossley-Holland, Storm
• Cholmondeley Award: Dannie Abse, Peter Redgrove, Brian Taylor
• Eric Gregory Award: Graham Mort, Adam Thorpe, Pippa Little, James Harpur, Simon North, Julian May
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Robert Edric, Winter Garden
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: David Nokes, Jonathan Swift: A Hypocrite Reversed
• Newdigate Prize: Robert Twigger
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Douglas Dunn, Elegies

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Liz Rosenberg, The Fire Music
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Poetry, Robert Penn Warren
• Frost Medal: Robert Penn Warren
• Nebula Award: Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: James Lapine for book; Stephen Sondheim for music and lyrics, Sunday in the Park With George
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Alison Lurie – Foreign Affairs
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Carolyn Kizer: Yin
• Whiting Awards (inaugural year): :Fiction: Raymond Abbott, Stuart Dybek, Wright Morris (fiction/nonfiction), Howard Norman, James Robison, Austin Wright (fiction/nonfiction) :Poetry: Douglas Crase, Jorie Graham, Linda Gregg, James Schuyler

Elsewhere

• Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Teddy Kollek
• Premio Nadal: Pau Faner Coll – Flor de sal

References

References

1. Bustillos, Maria. (2015-03-17). "The GNU Manifesto Turns Thirty". The New Yorker.
2. Glenn Deer. (1994). "Postmodern Canadian Fiction and the Rhetoric of Authority". McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP.
3. (3 June 2015). "Jilly Cooper's Riders: why the toned-down cover?". The Guardian.
4. [[Nicholas Birns]]. (1 December 2015). "Contemporary Australian Literature: A World Not Yet Dead". Sydney University Press.
5. (1988). "The Annual Obituary". St. Martin's.
6. Hambro, Johan (1984). ''C. J. Hambro: Liv og drøm'' (in Norwegian). Oslo: Aschehoug. p. 67. {{ISBN. 82-03-11347-8.
7. Robert Ayson. (24 September 2012). "Hedley Bull and the Accommodation of Power". Palgrave Macmillan.
8. "Waten, Judah Papers (National Library of Aus.) – Biographical Note". [[National Library of Australia]].
9. (1999). "American National Biography". Oxford University Press.
10. World Book, Inc. Staff. (February 1986). "The World Book Year Book". World Book, Incorporated.
11. Jill C. Wheeler. (1 January 2013). "E. B. White". ABDO Publishing Company.
12. Gibbs, Linneae. (1980). "James Hanley: A Bibliography".
13. Santo, Aricò L. (1990). ''Contemporary Women Writers in Italy: A Modern Renaissance''. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
14. (September 1989). "French XX Bibliography: Critical and Biographical References for the Study of French Literature Since 1885". Susquehanna University Press.