1986 in literature

Events

• April 29 – A major fire at Los Angeles Public Library caused by arson destroys 400,000 volumes.
• July 21 – Michael Grade, Controller of BBC1, axes plans to televise Ian Curteis's The Falklands Play.
• September 29 – Bloomsbury Publishing is set up in London by Nigel Newton.
• October 9 – The Phantom of the Opera, having been the longest running Broadway show ever, opens at Her Majesty's Theatre in London.
• December 19 – The Soviet dissident author Andrei Sakharov is allowed to return to Moscow after six years' internal exile.

New books

Fiction

• Kingsley Amis – The Old Devils
• V. C. Andrews – Garden of Shadows
• Piers Anthony – Ghost
• Jeffrey Archer – A Matter of Honour
• James Axler – Pilgrimage to Hell and Red Holocaust
• Iain Banks – The Bridge
• Thomas Bernhard – Extinction
• Orson Scott Card – Speaker for the Dead
• Tom Clancy – Red Storm Rising
• Arthur C. Clarke – The Songs of Distant Earth
• James Clavell – Whirlwind
• Jackie Collins – Hollywood Husbands
• Pat Conroy – The Prince of Tides
• Bernard Cornwell – Sharpe's Regiment
• Marguerite Duras – Blue Eyes, Black Hair
• James Ellroy – Silent Terror
• Peter Fox – Downtime
• John Gardner – Nobody Lives For Ever
• Peter Handke – Repetition
• Ernest Hemingway - * The Garden of Eden *
• Carl Hiaasen – Tourist Season
• Kazuo Ishiguro – An Artist of the Floating World
• Brian Jacques – Redwall
• Stephen King – It
• Judith Krantz – I'll Take Manhattan
• Louis L'Amour – Last of the Breed
• Joe R. Lansdale – Dead in the West
• John le Carré – A Perfect Spy
• David Leavitt – The Lost Language of Cranes
• Tanith Lee – Dreams of Dark and Light: The Great Short Fiction of Tanith Lee
• Gordon Lish – Dear Mr. Capote
• H. P. Lovecraft – Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (corrected edition)
• Robert Ludlum – The Bourne Supremacy
• Amin Maalouf – Leo Africanus
• Allan Massie – Augustus (first in the Roman series)
• Frank Miller – Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (graphic novel)
• Robert Munsch – Love You Forever
• Patrick O'Brian – The Reverse of the Medal
• Ellis Peters
  • The Raven in the Foregate
  • The Rose Rent
• Terry Pratchett – The Light Fantastic
• Reynolds Price – Kate Vaiden
• Jean Raspail – Who Will Remember the People...
• Idries Shah – Kara Kush
• Danielle Steel – Wanderlust
• Peter Taylor – A Summons to Memphis
• James Tiptree, Jr. – Tales of the Quintana Roo
• Vladimir Voinovich – Moscow 2042
• Roger Zelazny – Blood of Amber

Children and young people

• Janet and Allan Ahlberg – The Jolly Postman
• Chris Van Allsburg – The Stranger
• Tony Bradman – Dilly the Dinosaur (first in the eponymous series of 22 books)
• Steven Brust (with Alan Lee) – Brokedown Palace
• Robert J. Burch – Queenie Peavy
• Joy Cowley
  • (with Jan van der Voo) – Turnips For Dinner
  • (with Martin Bailey) – The King's Pudding
• Crescent Dragonwagon – Half a Moon and One Whole Star
• Jill Eggleton (with Kelvin Hawley) – Cat and Mouse
• Berniece T. Hiser – The Adventure of Charlie and His Wheat-Straw Hat
• Diana Wynne Jones – Howl's Moving Castle
• Michael de Larrabeiti
  • The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis
  • The Provençal Tales
• Arnold Lobel – The Random House Book of Mother Goose (in verse)
• Patricia McKissack – Flossie & the Fox
• Robert Munsch – Love You Forever
• Jill Murphy – Five Minutes' Peace (first in The Large Family series)
• Jenny Nimmo – The Snow Spider (first in The Magician Trilogy)
• Bill Peet – Zella, Zack, and Zodiac
• Claude Ponti – Adele's Album
• Alison Prince – The Type One Super Robot
• Gillian Rubinstein – Space Demons

Drama

• Caryl Churchill and David Lan – A Mouthful of Birds
• Nick Darke – The Dead Monkey
• Tomson Highway – The Rez Sisters
• Chinu Modi – Ashwamedh
• Willy Russell – Shirley Valentine
• Arvo Salo – Vallan miehet
• Tom Stoppard – Dalliance (based on a work by Arthur Schnitzler)

Poetry

• Kama Sywor Kamanda – Chants de brumes (Songs of twilight)

Non-fiction

• Dave Stieb (with Kevin Boland) - Tomorrow I'll be Perfect
• Martin Amis – The Moronic Inferno: And Other Visits to America
• Bernard Bailyn – Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution
• Frank Barlow – Thomas Becket
• Marjorie Chibnall – Anglo-Norman England 1066–1166
• Richard Dawkins – The Blind Watchmaker
• Karlheinz Deschner – Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums (Criminal History of Christianity)
• Adrian Edmondson et al. – How to be a Complete Bastard
• Sita Ram Goel – History of Hindu–Christian Encounters, AD 304 to 1996
• Temple Grandin (with Margaret Scariano) – Emergence: Labeled Autistic
• Patience Gray – Honey from a Weed (cookery)
• Robert Irwin – The Middle East in the Middle Ages: The Early Mamlúk Sultanate 1250–1382
• Kumari Jayawardena – Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World
• Mark Mathabane – Kaffir Boy
• Farley Mowat – My Discovery of America
• Harvey Pekar – American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar (graphic autobiography)
• Marc Reisner – Cadillac Desert
• Richard Rhodes – The Making of the Atomic Bomb
• Jonathan Riley-Smith – The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading
• Roger Scruton – Sexual Desire: A Philosophical Investigation
• Art Spiegelman – Maus: A Survivor's Tale (I: My Father Bleeds History) (graphic biography/autobiography)
• Jean Vercoutter – The Search for Ancient Egypt
• Mary Wilson – Dreamgirl: My Life As a Supreme

Births

• January 24 - Aimee Carter, American young-adult fiction writer
• June 6 - Rachelle Dekker, American science-fiction writer
• July 3 – Chris Bush, English playwright, artistic director and comedian
• unknown dates
  • Caroline Bird, English poet and dramatist
  • Chigozie Obioma, Nigerian novelist

Deaths

• January 1 – Lord David Cecil, English critic and biographer (born 1902)
• January 4 – Christopher Isherwood, English-born novelist (born 1904)
• January 7
  • P. D. Eastman, American author and illustrator (born 1909)
  • Juan Rulfo, Mexican writer, screenwriter and photographer (born 1917)
• January 9 – W. S. Graham, Scottish poet (born 1918)
• January 24 – L. Ron Hubbard, American science fiction writer, founder of Scientology (born 1911)
• January 26 – Nicholas Moore, English poet (born 1911)
• February 4 – Phyllis Shand Allfrey, Dominican writer (born 1908)
• February 9 – Dora Oake Russell, Newfoundland writer, diarist and journalist (born 1912)
• February 11 – Frank Herbert, American science fiction novelist (born 1920)
• February 27 – Nancy Brysson Morrison, Scottish novelist (born 1903)
• February 28 – Edith Ditmas, English archivist, historian and writer (born 1896)
• March 4
  • Ding Ling, Chinese fiction writer (born 1904)
  • Elizabeth Smart, Canadian poet and novelist (born 1913)
• March 15 – Pandelis Prevelakis, Greek novelist, poet, dramatist and essayist (born 1909)
• March 18 – Bernard Malamud, American novelist (born 1914)
• April 12 – Valentin Kataev, Russian novelist and dramatist (born 1897)
• April 14
  • Simone de Beauvoir, French philosopher and feminist writer (born 1908)
  • Jean Genet, French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist and political activist (born 1910)
• April 17 – Bessie Head, Botswanan fiction writer (born 1937)
• April 22 – Mircea Eliade, Romanian historian, philosopher and novelist (born 1907)
• May 15 – Theodore H. White, American journalist, historian and novelist (born 1915)
• June 14 – Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer (born 1899)
• July 16 – Stephen Coulter, English writer (born 1914)
• August 1 – Lena Kennedy, English romantic novelist (born 1914)
• August 3 – Beryl Markham, English-born Kenyan aviator and author (born 1902)
• August 18 – Vivian Stuart, English novelist (born 1914)
• August 20 – Milton Acorn, Canadian poet, writer and playwright (born 1923)
• September 11 – Noel Streatfeild, English novelist and children's writer (born 1895)
• October 28 – John Braine, English novelist (born 1922)
• December 17 – J. F. Hendry, Scottish poet (born 1912)
• December 19 – V. C. Andrews, American novelist (born 1923)
• December 28 – John D. MacDonald, American novelist and short story writer (born 1916)

Awards==

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Wole Soyinka

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Robin Walton, Glace Fruits
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Rhyll McMaster, Washing the Money and John A. Scott, St. Clair
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Robert Gray Selected Poems 1963–83
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Stephen Williams, A Crowd of Voices
• Miles Franklin Award: Elizabeth Jolley, The Well

Canada

• See 1986 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Michel Host, Valet de nuit
• Prix Médicis French: Pierre Combescot, Les Funérailles de la Sardine
• Prix Médicis International: John Hawkes, Aventures dans le commerce des peaux en Alaska

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Berlie Doherty, Granny Was a Buffer Girl
• Cholmondeley Award: Lawrence Durrell, James Fenton, Selima Hill
• Eric Gregory Award: Mick North, Lachlan Mackinnon, Oliver Reynolds, Stephen Romer
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Jenny Joseph, Persephone
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: D. Felicitas Corrigan, Helen Waddell
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Norman MacCaig
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Robley Wilson, Kingdoms of the Ordinary
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Sidney Kingsley
• Frost Medal: Allen Ginsberg / Richard Eberhart
• Nebula Award: Orson Scott Card, Speaker For the Dead
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Patricia MacLachlan, Sarah, Plain and Tall
• Prometheus Award: Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Henry Taylor, The Flying Change
• Whiting Awards: Fiction: Kent Haruf, Denis Johnson, Padgett Powell, Mona Simpson; Poetry: John Ash, Hayden Carruth, Frank Stewart, Ruth Stone; Nonfiction: Darryl Pinckney (nonfiction/fiction); Plays: August Wilson

Elsewhere

• Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Władysław Bartoszewski
• Premio Nadal: Manuel Vicent, Balada de Caín

References

References

1. Orlean, Susan. (2018). "The Library Book". Simon & Schuster.
2. Ian Curteis. (1987). "The Falklands Play: A Television Play". Hutchinson.
3. Royal Society of Arts (Great Britain). (1988). "RSA Journal". Royal Society of Arts.
4. Dominic Head. (26 January 2006). "The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English". Cambridge University Press.
5. (1992). "Studies in Medievalism". D.S. Brewer.
6. (1987-06-02). "Books of the Times". The New York Times.
7. Gay, Jane. (2003). "Languages of theatre shaped by women". Intellect.
8. Erskine, Thomas. (2000). "Video versions : film adaptations of plays on video". Greenwood Press.
9. George C. Schoolfield. (1998). "A History of Finland's Literature". University of Nebraska Press.
10. (2020-11-02). "Caroline Bird".
11. (1986). "The George Eliot, George Henry Lewes Newsletter". West Midlands College, English Division.
12. (1 August 1989). "Annual Obituary, 1986". St James Press.