text:
1988 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1988.

Events

 * March 7 – Nine thousand movie and television writers of the Writers' Guild of America go on strike a day after rejecting a final offer from producers.
 * May 28–31 – The first Hay Festival of literature is held in the Welsh Marches.
 * June – The Panasonic Globe Theatre, Tokyo, opens with an Ingmar Bergman production of Shakespeare's Hamlet.
 * August 7 – The Writers Guild of America strike formally ends.
 * November 15 – Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 reforms copyright law in the United Kingdom, with special provision for Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick children to benefit in perpetuity from royalties in J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up.
 * unknown date – Vasily Grossman's 1960 novel Life and Fate (Жизнь и судьба) is published for the first time in the Soviet Union, in the magazine Oktyabr.

Fiction

 * Caio Fernando Abreu – Os dragões não conhecem o paraíso (Dragons, short stories)
 * Margaret Atwood – Cat's Eye
 * Bernardo Atxaga – Obabakoak (short stories)
 * J. G. Ballard
 * Memories of the Space Age
 * Running Wild
 * Iain M. Banks – The Player of Games
 * Clive Barker
 * Cabal
 * The Hellbound Heart
 * Thomas Berger – The Houseguest
 * Michael Blake – Dances with Wolves
 * Dionne Brand – Sans Souci and Other Stories
 * Ray Bradbury – The Toynbee Convector (short story)
 * Orson Scott Card – Treason
 * Peter Carey – Oscar and Lucinda
 * Roger Caron – Jojo
 * Raymond Carver – Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories
 * Michael Chabon – The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
 * Tom Clancy – The Cardinal of the Kremlin
 * Paulo Coelho – The Alchemist
 * Hugh Cook – The Walrus and the Warwolf
 * Bernard Cornwell
 * Sharpe's Rifles
 * Wildtrack
 * Jim Crace – The Gift of Stones
 * Tsitsi Dangarembga – Nervous Conditions
 * Robertson Davies – The Lyre of Orpheus
 * L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp – The Stones of Nomuru
 * Don DeLillo – Libra
 * Dương Thu Hương – Paradise of the Blind (Những thiên đường mù)
 * Allan W. Eckert – The Dark Green Tunnel
 * Umberto Eco – Foucault's Pendulum (Il pendolo di Foucault)
 * John Gardner – Scorpius
 * Thomas Harris – The Silence of the Lambs
 * Joseph Heller – Picture This
 * Alan Hollinghurst – The Swimming Pool Library
 * William Horwood – Duncton Wood
 * Hamid Ismailov – Собрание Утончённых (Conference of the Refined)
 * Judith Krantz – 'Til We Meet Again
 * Doris Lessing – The Fifth Child
 * Bernard-Henri Lévy – Les Derniers Jours de Charles Baudelaire
 * Robert Ludlum – The Icarus Agenda
 * Javier Marías – Todas las almas (All Souls)
 * David Markson – Wittgenstein's Mistress
 * James A. Michener – Alaska
 * Robert B. Parker – Crimson Joy
 * Belva Plain – Tapestry
 * Ellis Peters
 * The Confession of Brother Haluin
 * A Rare Benedictine: The Advent of Brother Cadfael
 * Richard Powers – Prisoner's Dilemma
 * Tim Powers – On Stranger Tides
 * Terry Pratchett
 * Sourcery
 * Wyrd Sisters
 * Christoph Ransmayr – The Last World
 * Jean Raspail – Blue Island
 * Alina Reyes – The Butcher
 * David Adams Richards – Nights Below Station Street
 * Salman Rushdie – The Satanic Verses
 * Richard Russo – The Risk Pool
 * R. A. Salvatore – The Crystal Shard (first of The Icewind Dale Trilogy)
 * Sidney Sheldon – The Sands of Time
 * Clark Ashton Smith – A Rendezvous in Averoigne
 * Danielle Steel – Zoya
 * Thomas Sullivan – The Phases of Harry Moon
 * Julian Symons – The Kentish Manor Murders
 * Christopher Tolkien (with J. R. R. Tolkien and Alan Lee) – The Return of the Shadow
 * Nikolai Tolstoy – The Coming of the King
 * Anne Tyler – Breathing Lessons
 * Andrew Vachss – Blue Belle
 * Mario Vargas Llosa – In Praise of the Stepmother (Elogio de la madrastra)
 * Banana Yoshimoto – Kitchen

Children and young people

 * Chris Van Allsburg – Two Bad Ants
 * Martin Auer – Now, Now, Markus (Bimbo und sein Vogel)
 * Lyll Becerra de Jenkins – The Honorable Prison
 * Roald Dahl – Matilda
 * Janice Elliott – The Empty Throne (second in The Sword and the Dream series)
 * Virginia Hamilton (with Barry Moser) – In the Beginning: Creation Stories from Around the World
 * William Joyce – Robots
 * Elizabeth Laird – Red Sky in the Morning (also as Loving Ben)
 * Geraldine McCaughrean – A Pack of Lies
 * Patricia McKissack – Mirandy and Brother Wind
 * Beatrice Schenk de Regniers (with Eva Moore et al.) – Sing a Song of Popcorn: Every Child's Book of Poems
 * P. L. Travers – Mary Poppins and the House Next Door
 * Manuel Vázquez Montalbán (with Willi Glasauer) – Escenas de la Literatura Universal y Retratos de Grandes Autores (Scenes from World Literature and Portraits of Greatest Authors)

Drama

 * Alan Bennett – Single Spies (stage versions of An Englishman Abroad and A Question of Attribution)
 * Thomas Bernhard – Heldenplatz
 * David Henry Hwang – M. Butterfly
 * Ann-Marie MacDonald – Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)
 * Peter Shaffer – Lettice and Lovage
 * Tom Stoppard – Hapgood
 * Botho Strauß – Seven Doors (Sieben Türen)

Poetry

 * Giannina Braschi – El imperio de los sueños (Empire of Dreams)
 * James Merrill – The Inner Room
 * Grazyna Miller – "Curriculum"

Non-fiction

 * Peter A. Clayton and Martin Price – The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
 * David Herbert Donald – Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe
 * Albert Goldman – The Lives of John Lennon
 * Sita Ram Goel – Catholic Ashrams
 * Stephen Hawking – A Brief History of Time
 * Chris Killip with John Berger and Sylvia Grant – In Flagrante
 * K. S. Lal – The Mughal Harem
 * Patrick Macnee and Marie Cameron – Blind in One Ear: The Avenger Returns (Macnee's autobiography)
 * Michel Maffesoli – The Time of the Tribes (Le Temps des tribus)
 * Lou Mollgaard – Kiki: Reine de la Montparnasse
 * Rosalind Miles – The Women's History of the World
 * Alanna Nash – Golden Girl: The Story of Jessica Savitch
 * Lady Violet Powell – The Life of a Provincial Lady: A Study of E. M. Delafield and Her Works
 * Philip Roth – The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography
 * Miranda Seymour – A Ring of Conspirators: Henry James and his Literary Circle, 1895–1915
 * Joe Simpson – Touching the Void
 * William L. Sullivan – Listening for Coyote
 * Frédéric Vitoux – Céline: A Biography (La Vie de Céline)
 * Michael Jackson – Moonwalk

Births

 * January 28 – Pierce Brown, American science-fiction writer
 * May 18 – Luu Quang Minh, Vietnamese writer and singer
 * August 19 – Veronica Roth, American young-adult novelist and short story writer
 * September 10 – Dominika Słowik, Polish writer
 * October 14 – Ocean Vuong, Vietnamese-American poet
 * November 9 – Tahereh Mafi, American young-adult novelist
 * unknown date – Fiona Mozley, English novelist and medievalist

Deaths

 * January 6 – L. P. Davies, English novelist (born 1914)
 * February 1 – Gerald Butler, English crime writer (born 1907)
 * February 3 – Robert Duncan, American poet (born 1919)
 * February 6 – Marghanita Laski, English biographer, novelist and broadcaster (born 1915)
 * February 27 – Basil Boothroyd, English poet and humorist (born 1910)
 * February 28 – Kylie Tennant, Australian novelist, playwright and historian (born 1912)
 * March 11 – Christianna Brand (Mary Christianna Lewis), British crime novelist (born 1907)
 * March 19 – Máirtín Ó Direáin, Irish-language poet (born 1910)
 * April 12 – Alan Paton, South African novelist and political activist (born 1903)
 * April 15 – Modest Morariu, Romanian poet, essayist, prose writer and translator (born 1929)
 * April 21 – I. A. L. Diamond, Bessarabian-born American comedy writer (born 1920)
 * May 3 – Premendra Mitra, Bengali poet, novelist and short story writer (born 1904)
 * May 8 – Robert A. Heinlein, American science fiction writer (born 1907)
 * May 10 – Shen Congwen, Chinese writer (born 1902)
 * May 23 – Aya Kitō, Japanese diarist (born 1962)
 * June 6 – Gheorghe Eminescu, Romanian historian and memoirist (lung disease, born 1890)
 * June 10 – Louis L'Amour, American western novelist (born 1908)
 * June 21 – George Ivașcu, Romanian journalist, literary critic, and communist militant (born 1911)
 * July 10
 * Noel Barber, British novelist (born 1909)
 * Enrique Lihn, Chilean poet, playwright, and novelist (cancer, born 1929)
 * July 12 – Joshua Logan, American stage and film writer (born 1908)
 * August 2 – Raymond Carver, American short-story writer and poet (born 1938)
 * August 20 – Joan G. Robinson, English children's writer and illustrator (born 1910)
 * August 23 – Menotti Del Picchia, Brazilian poet, journalist and painter (born 1892)
 * August 28 – Max Shulman, American novelist, short-story writer and dramatist (born 1919)
 * September 11 – Roger Hargreaves, English children's author and illustrator (born 1935)
 * September 28 – Charles Addams, American cartoonist (born 1912)
 * October 1 – Sacheverell Sitwell, English writer and art critic (born 1897)
 * October 10 – Bhabani Bhattacharya, Indian fiction writer (born 1906)
 * October 12 – Ruth Manning-Sanders, British children's author (born 1895)
 * October 16
 * John Gwilym Jones, Welsh dramatist and writer (born 1904)
 * Christian Matras, Faroese poet (born 1900)
 * November 2 – Stewart Parker, Northern Irish poet and playwright (cancer, born 1941)
 * November 8 – Hamad al-Hajji, Saudi Arabian poet (born 1939)
 * November 9 – Rosemary Timperley, British novelist (born 1920)
 * December 11 – Thomas Owen Beachcroft, English novelist (born 1902)
 * December 16 – Frank Bonham, American western and young adult novelist (born 1914)

Awards

 * Nobel Prize for Literature: Naguib Mahfouz

Australia

 * The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Tom Flood, Oceana Fine
 * C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Judith Beveridge, The Domesticity of Giraffes
 * Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Judith Beveridge, The Domesticity of Giraffes
 * Mary Gilmore Prize: Judith Beveridge, The Domesticity of Giraffes
 * Miles Franklin Award: No award presented

Canada

 * See 1988 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

 * Grand Prix de Littérature Policière International: Andrew Vachss, Strega
 * Prix Goncourt: Érik Orsenna, L'Exposition coloniale
 * Prix Médicis French: Christiane Rochefort, La Porte du fond
 * Prix Médicis International: Thomas Bernhard, les Maîtres anciens

United Kingdom

 * Booker Prize: Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda
 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Geraldine McCaughrean, A Pack of Lies
 * Cholmondeley Award: John Heath-Stubbs, Sean O'Brien, John Whitworth
 * Eric Gregory Award: Michael Symmons Roberts, Gwyneth Lewis, Adrian Blackledge, Simon Armitage, Robert Crawford
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Piers Paul Read, A Season in the West
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein, A Life: Young Ludwig (1889–1921)
 * Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Derek Walcott
 * Whitbread Best Book Award: Paul Sayer, The Comforts of Madness
 * The Sunday Express Book of the Year: David Lodge, Nice Work

United States

 * Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Maxine Scates, Toluca Street
 * Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Richard Wilbur
 * Frost Medal: Carolyn Kizer
 * National Book Award for Fiction: Pete Dexter, Paris Trout
 * National Book Critics Circle: Bharati Mukherjee, The Middleman and Other Stories
 * Nebula Award: Lois McMaster Bujold, Falling Free
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Russell Freedman, Lincoln: A Photobiography
 * PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: T. Coraghessan Boyle, World's End
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Alfred Uhry, Driving Miss Daisy
 * Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Toni Morrison, Beloved
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: William Meredith: Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems
 * Whiting Awards: Fiction: Lydia Davis, Bruce Duffy, Jonathan Franzen, Mary La Chapelle, William T. Vollmann. Nonfiction: Gerald Early, Geoffrey O'Brien. Poetry: Michael Burkard, Li-Young Lee, Sylvia Moss

Spain

 * Premio Nadal:, Retratos de ambigú

title: 1988 in literature


text:
1987 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1987.

Events

 * January 2 – Golliwogs in Enid Blyton children's books are replaced by the British publisher with gnomes after complaints of a racial offence implication.
 * April – K. W. Jeter coins the term "Steampunk" in a letter published in Locus: the magazine of the science fiction & fantasy field.
 * June – Virago Press of London publishes Down the Road, Worlds Away, a collection of short stories ostensibly by Rahila Khan, a young Muslim woman living in England. Three weeks later, Toby Forward, an Anglican clergyman, admits to writing them and the publisher withdraws the book. "He, unlike the editors at Virago, had grown up in precisely the kind of area and social conditions that the book described.... Although the book never claimed to be other than a work of fiction, the publishers destroyed the stock still in the warehouse and recalled all unsold copies from the bookshops, thus turning it into an expensive bibliographical rarity."
 * July 31 – The United Kingdom Attorney General takes legal proceedings on security grounds against the London paper The Daily Telegraph to prevent it publishing details of the book Spycatcher. On September 23, an Australian court lifts its ban on the book's publication.
 * August – A new building for the National Library of New Zealand in Wellington opens.
 * unknown dates
 * Tom Wolfe is paid US$5 million for the film rights to his novel The Bonfire of the Vanities (published in book format in October), a record fee to an author at this time.
 * Ian Rankin's Knots and Crosses, first of the Inspector Rebus detective novels set around Edinburgh, is published in London.

Fiction

 * Chinua Achebe – Anthills of the Savannah
 * Peter Ackroyd – Chatterton (shortlisted for Booker Prize 1987)
 * Douglas Adams – Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
 * Martin Amis – Einstein's Monsters
 * Gilles Archambault – L'Obsédante obèse et autres agressions
 * Paul Auster
 * The New York Trilogy
 * In the Country of Last Things
 * Iain Banks
 * Consider Phlebas (as Iain M. Banks)
 * Espedair Street
 * Clive Barker – Weaveworld
 * Greg Bear – The Forge of God
 * Saul Bellow - More Die of Heartbreak
 * Thomas Berger – Being Invisible
 * William Boyd – The New Confessions
 * T.C. Boyle – World's End (1988 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction)
 * Marion Zimmer Bradley – The Firebrand
 * Truddi Chase – When Rabbit Howls
 * Tom Clancy – Patriot Games
 * Hugh Cook
 * The Wordsmiths and the Warguild
 * The Women and the Warlords
 * Robin Cook – Outbreak
 * Bernard Cornwell
 * Redcoat
 * Sharpe's Rifles
 * Robert Crais – The Monkey's Raincoat
 * L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp – The Incorporated Knight
 * Jenny Diski – Rainforest
 * Jim Dodge – Not Fade Away
 * Roddy Doyle – The Commitments
 * Bret Easton Ellis – The Rules of Attraction
 * James Ellroy – Black Dahlia
 * Carlos Fuentes – Christopher Unborn
 * Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean – Violent Cases (graphic novel)
 * John Gardner – No Deals, Mr. Bond
 * Kaye Gibbons – Ellen Foster
 * Ken Grimwood – Replay
 * Larry Heinemann – Paco's Story (1987 National Book Award for Fiction)
 * Tom Holt – Expecting Someone Taller
 * Josephine Humphreys – Rich in Love
 * Dương Thu Hương – Bên kia bờ ảo vọng (Beyond Illusions)
 * John Jakes – Heaven and Hell
 * Tahar Ben Jelloun – La Nuit sacrée (The Sacred Night)
 * Garrison Keillor – Leaving Home: A Collection of Lake Wobegon Stories
 * Jesse Lee Kercheval – The Dogeater
 * Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa – Ualalapi
 * Stephen King
 * Misery
 * The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three
 * The Tommyknockers
 * The Eyes of the Dragon
 * Penelope Lively – Moon Tiger
 * Ian McEwan – The Child in Time
 * Betty Mahmoody – Not Without My Daughter
 * James A. Michener – Legacy
 * Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons – Watchmen (graphic novel)
 * Finola Moorhead – Remember the Tarantella
 * Toni Morrison – Beloved (1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)
 * V. S. Naipaul – The Enigma of Arrival
 * Michael Ondaatje – In the Skin of A Lion
 * Robert B. Parker – Pale Kings and Princes
 * Gary Paulsen – Hatchet
 * Ellis Peters – The Hermit of Eyton Forest
 * Rosamunde Pilcher – The Shell Seekers
 * Peter Pohl – Vi kallar honom Anna
 * Terry Pratchett
 * Equal Rites
 * Mort
 * Paul Quarrington – King Leary
 * Edward Rutherfurd – Sarum
 * José Saramago – Baltasar and Blimunda
 * Leonardo Sciascia – Porte aperte
 * Michael Shea – Polyphemus
 * Sidney Sheldon – Windmills of the Gods
 * Lucius Shepard – The Jaguar Hunter
 * Carol Shields – Swann: A Mystery
 * Michael Slade – Ghoul
 * Danielle Steel
 * Fine Things
 * Kaleidoscope
 * Scott Turow – Presumed Innocent
 * Andrew Vachss – Strega
 * Gore Vidal – Empire
 * Barbara Vine – A Fatal Inversion
 * William T. Vollmann – You Bright and Risen Angels
 * Kurt Vonnegut – Bluebeard
 * Gene Wolfe – The Urth of the New Sun
 * Tom Wolfe – The Bonfire of the Vanities
 * Gamel Woolsey (posthumously) – One Way of Love (written 1930)
 * Roger Zelazny – Sign of Chaos

Children and young people

 * Lloyd Alexander – The El Dorado Adventure
 * Chris Van Allsburg – The Z Was Zapped (alphabet book)
 * Tedd Arnold – No Jumping on the Bed!
 * Janice Elliott – The King Awakes (first in The Sword and the Dream series)
 * Anne Fine – Madame Doubtfire
 * Willi Glasauer – Grüße aus der Fremde (Greetings from the Surreal)
 * Witi Ihimaera – The Whale Rider
 * Julius Lester – The Tales of Uncle Remus: the Adventures of Brer Rabbit
 * Bill Peet – Jethro and Joel Were a Troll
 * Ruth Thomas – The Runaways
 * Theresa Tomlinson – The Flither Pickers (first in the Against the Tide trilogy)
 * Audrey Wood – Heckedy Peg
 * Jane Yolen – Owl Moon

Drama

 * Nezihe Araz – Afife Jale
 * Caryl Churchill – Serious Money
 * Robert Harling – Steel Magnolias
 * Liz Lochhead – Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off
 * Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield – The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)
 * Stephen Mallatratt (adapted from Susan Hill) – The Woman in Black
 * Warren Manzi – Perfect Crime
 * Peter Shaffer – Lettice and Lovage

Non-fiction

 * Claude-François Baudez & Sydney Picasso – Lost Cities of the Maya
 * Allan Bloom – The Closing of the American Mind
 * David Bohm – Science, Order, and Creativity
 * Robert V. Bruce – The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846–1876
 * Bruce Chatwin – The Songlines
 * Nien Cheng – Life and Death in Shanghai
 * Bill Cosby – Time Flies
 * Andrea Dworkin – Intercourse
 * Sita Ram Goel – The Calcutta Quran Petition
 * C. Z. Guest – First Garden (approximate year – book undated)
 * Robert Hughes – The Fatal Shore
 * Georges Jean – Writing: The Story of Alphabets and Scripts
 * Paul Kennedy – The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict From 1500 to 2000
 * Nicholas Kenyon (editor) – Authenticity and Early Music
 * Steven Long – Death Without Dignity: The Story of the First Nursing Home Corporation Indicted for Murder
 * Salman Rushdie – The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey
 * Randy Shilts – And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
 * Donald Trump (attrib.) and Tony Schwartz – Trump: The Art of the Deal
 * Peter Wright – Spycatcher

Births

 * February 11 – Julio Torres, Salvadoran writer, comedian, and actor
 * February 27 – Alexandra Bracken, American young-adult novelist
 * April 12 – Ilana Glazer, American comedian, director, producer, writer, and actress
 * December 15 – Mayra Dias Gomes, Brazilian journalist and columnist
 * unknown dates
 * Mina Adampour, Norwegian journalist, politician and activist of Iranian origin
 * Katherine Rundell, English children's writer and academic brought up in Zimbabwe and Belgium

Deaths

 * January 15 – George Markstein, German-born English journalist and thriller writer (kidney failure, born 1926)
 * February 2 – Alistair MacLean, Scottish thriller writer (heart attack, born 1922)
 * February 4 – Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, Welsh journalist and broadcaster (born 1908)
 * February 10 – William Rose, American screenwriter (born 1918)
 * February 22 – Andy Warhol, American artist, director and writer (cardiac arrhythmia, born 1928)
 * March 4 – Maria Jolas (Maria McDonald), American-born French publisher and campaigner (born 1893)
 * April 4 – C. L. Moore, American science fiction author (born 1911)
 * April 7 – John Lehmann, English poet, biographer and publisher (born 1907)
 * April 11
 * Erskine Caldwell, American novelist (born 1903)
 * Primo Levi, Italian chemist and writer (born 1919)
 * April 12 – Oliver Stonor, English novelist (born 1903)
 * April 24 – Josephine Bell, English novelist (born 1897)
 * May 13 – Richard Ellmann, American-born biographer (born 1918)
 * May 18 – Heðin Brú, Faroese fiction writer and translator (born 1901)
 * May 30 – Norman Nicholson, English poet (born 1914)
 * June 6 – Fulton Mackay, Scottish actor and playwright (born 1922)
 * June 7 – Humberto Costantini, Argentinian writer (cancer, born 1924)
 * June 22 – John Hewitt, Northern Irish poet (born 1907)
 * June 29 – C. Hamilton Ellis, English writer (born 1909)
 * July 26 – Tawfiq al-Hakim, Egyptian novelist and dramatist (born 1898)
 * August 6 – Peter Whigham, English poet and translator (road accident; born 1925)
 * August 18 – Dambudzo Marechera, Zimbabwean writer (born 1952)
 * September 1 – Alan Reid ("Red Fox"), English-born Australian journalist (cancer, born 1914)
 * September 25 – Emlyn Williams, Welsh dramatist (born 1905)
 * September 30 – Alfred Bester, American science fiction writer (born 1913)
 * October 3 – Jean Anouilh, French dramatist (born 1910)
 * October 8 – Roger Lancelyn Green, English biographer and children's author (born 1918)
 * October 9 – Clare Boothe Luce, American playwright (born 1903)
 * October 31 – Joseph Campbell, American author and mythology expert (born 1904)
 * November 29 – Gwendolyn MacEwen, Canadian poet (alcohol-related, born 1941)
 * December 1 – James Baldwin, African American novelist (stomach cancer, born 1924)
 * December 4 – Arnold Lobel, American children's writer and illustrator (born 1933)
 * December 9 – Diana Forbes-Robertson, English writer and biographer (born 1914)
 * December 17 – Marguerite Yourcenar, French novelist and essayist (born 1903)

Awards

 * Nobel Prize for Literature: Joseph Brodsky

Australia

 * The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Jim Sakkas, Ilias
 * C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Lily Brett, The Auschwitz Poems
 * Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Philip Hodgins, Blood and Bone
 * Mary Gilmore Prize: Jan Owen, Boy with Telescope
 * Miles Franklin Award: Glenda Adams, Dancing on Coral

Canada

 * See 1987 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

 * Prix Goncourt: Tahar ben Jelloun, La Nuit sacrée
 * Prix Médicis French: Pierre Mertens, Les Éblouissements
 * Prix Médicis International: Antonio Tabucchi, Indian Nocturne

United Kingdom

 * Booker Prize: Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger
 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Susan Price, The Ghost Drum
 * Cholmondeley Award: Wendy Cope, Matthew Sweeney, George Szirtes
 * Eric Gregory Award: Peter McDonald, Maura Dooley, Stephen Knight, Steve Anthony, Jill Maughan, Paul Munden
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: George Mackay Brown, The Golden Bird: Two Orkney Stories
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Ruth Dudley Edwards, Victor Gollancz: A Biography
 * Whitbread Best Book Award: Christopher Nolan, Under the Eye of the Clock
 * Sunday Express Book of the Year: Brian Moore, The Colour of Blood

United States

 * Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: David Rivard, Torque
 * Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Howard Nemerov
 * American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Belles Lettres: Jacques Barzun
 * Frost Medal: Robert Creeley / Sterling Brown
 * National Book Critics Circle Award: to The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
 * National Book Award for Fiction: to Paco's Story by Larry Heinemann
 * Nebula Award: Pat Murphy, The Falling Woman
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Sid Fleischman The Whipping Boy
 * PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: to Soldiers in Hiding by Richard Wiley
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: August Wilson, Fences
 * Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Peter Taylor, A Summons to Memphis
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Rita Dove, Thomas and Beulah
 * Whiting Awards:
 * Fiction: Joan Chase, Pam Durban, Deborah Eisenberg, Alice McDermott, David Foster Wallace
 * Poetry: Mark Cox, Michael Ryan
 * Nonfiction: Mindy Aloff, Gretel Ehrlich
 * Plays: Reinaldo Povod

Elsewhere

 * Europe Theatre Prize: Ariane Mnouchkine, Théâtre du Soleil
 * Premio Nadal: Juan José Saer, La ocasión

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: 1987 in literature


text:
Ova (disambiguation)

Ova is the plural form of ovum, the female sex cell or gamete.

Ova or OVA may also refer to:

Places

 * Ova, Kaş, a village in the Antalya Province, Turkey
 * Ova, Kentucky, an unincorporated community
 * Ovà, Piedmontese name for Ovada, a comune in Piedmont, Italy

Organizations

 * Office for Veterans' Affairs, part of the UK Government
 * Open Virtualization Alliance, consortium promoting the use of free and open-source software

Science and technology

 * Ovalbumin (OVA), a protein found in egg whites
 * .ova, filename extension in Open Virtualization Format
 * Original video animation, anime films released directly to video

Other uses

 * -ova, a feminine surname suffix in Eastern Slavic naming customs

title: Ova (disambiguation)


text:
Verity Lambert

Verity Ann Lambert (27 November 1935 – 22 November 2007) was an English television and film producer.

Lambert began working in television in the 1950s. She began her career as a producer at the BBC by becoming the founding producer of the science-fiction series Doctor Who from 1963 until 1965. She left the BBC in 1969 and worked for other television companies, notably having a long association with Thames Television and its Euston Films offshoot in the 1970s and 1980s. Her many credits as producer include Adam Adamant Lives!, The Naked Civil Servant, Rock Follies, Minder, Widows, G.B.H., Jonathan Creek, Love Soup and Eldorado. She also worked in the film industry for Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment. From 1985 she ran her own production company, Cinema Verity. She continued to work as a producer until the year she died.

Women were rarely television producers in Britain at the beginning of Lambert's career. When she was appointed to Doctor Who in 1963, she was BBC Television's only female drama producer, as well as the youngest. The website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications hails her as "not only one of Britain's leading businesswomen, but possibly the most powerful member of the nation's entertainment industry ... Lambert has served as a symbol of the advances won by women in the media". The British Film Institute's Screenonline website describes Lambert as "one of those producers who can often create a fascinating small screen universe from a slim script and half-a-dozen congenial players."

Early career in independent television
Lambert was born in London, the daughter of a Jewish accountant, and was educated at Roedean School. She left Roedean at sixteen with six O-Levels and pursued a six months language course at the University of Paris enrolling at a secretarial college upon returning to London for eighteen months. She later credited her interest in the structural and characterisational aspects of scriptwriting to an inspirational English teacher. Lambert's first job was the typing of menus at the Kensington De Vere Hotel, which employed her because she had been to France and could speak French. In 1956, she entered the television industry as a secretary at Granada Television's press office. She was sacked from this job after six months.

Following her dismissal from Granada, Lambert took a job as a shorthand-typist at ABC Weekend TV. She soon became the secretary to the company's Head of Drama and then a production secretary working on a programme called State Your Case. She then moved from administration to production, working on drama programming on ABC's popular anthology series Armchair Theatre and also early episodes of The Avengers, both of which were then overseen by the new Head of Drama, Canadian producer Sydney Newman.

Catastrophic incidents could occur on live television of this era. On 28 November 1958, while Lambert was working as a Production Assistant on Armchair Theatre, an actor died during a live broadcast of Underground and she had to take responsibility for directing the cameras from the studio gallery while director Ted Kotcheff worked with the actors on the studio floor to accommodate the loss.

In 1961, Lambert left ABC, spending a year working as the personal assistant to American television producer David Susskind at the independent production company Talent Associates in New York. Returning to England, she rejoined ABC with an ambition to direct, but remained a production assistant and found it impossible to gain promotion. She decided that, if she could not find advancement within a year, she would abandon television as a career.

Doctor Who
In December 1962, Sydney Newman left ABC to take up the position of Head of Drama at BBC Television, and the following year Lambert joined him at the corporation. Newman had recruited her to produce Doctor Who, a programme he had personally conceived and initiated as an educational science-fiction serial for early Saturday evenings. The programme concerned the adventures of an old man travelling through space and time in his TARDIS, disguised as a police box. In some quarters, the series was not expected to last longer than thirteen weeks.

Although Lambert was not Newman's first choice to produce the series—Don Taylor and Shaun Sutton had both declined the position—he was very keen to ensure that Lambert took the job after his experience of working with her at ABC. "I think the best thing I ever did on that was to find Verity Lambert," he told Doctor Who Magazine in 1993. "I remembered Verity as being bright and, to use the phrase, full of piss and vinegar! She was gutsy and she used to fight and argue with me, even though she was not at a very high level as a production assistant."

When Lambert arrived at the BBC in June 1963, she was initially given a more experienced associate producer, Mervyn Pinfield, to assist her. Doctor Who debuted on 23 November 1963 and quickly became a success for the BBC, chiefly on the popularity of the alien creatures known as Daleks. Lambert's superior, Head of Serials Donald Wilson, had strongly advised against using the script in which the Daleks first appeared, but after the serial's successful airing, he said that Lambert clearly knew the series far better than he did, and he would no longer interfere in her decisions. The success of Doctor Who and the Daleks also garnered press attention for Lambert herself; in 1964, the Daily Mail published a feature on the series focusing on its young producer's looks: "The operation of the Daleks ... is conducted by a remarkably attractive young woman called Verity Lambert who, at 28, is not only the youngest but the only female drama producer at B.B.C. TV ... [T]all, dark and shapely, she became positively forbidding when I suggested that the Daleks might one day take over Dr. Who."

Lambert oversaw the first two seasons of the programme and the first part of the third, eventually leaving in 1965. "There comes a time when a series needs new input," she told Doctor Who Magazine thirty years later. "It's not that I wasn't fond of Doctor Who, I simply felt that the time had come. It had been eighteen very concentrated months, something like seventy shows. I know people do soaps forever now, but I felt Doctor Who needed someone to come in with a different view." 15 episodes produced by Lambert—all episodes of  Marco Polo, two episodes of The Reign of Terror, two episodes of The Crusade, three episodes of Galaxy 4 and the standalone Mission to the Unknown—were not retained in the BBC Archives, mainly affecting her first year working on the show.

Other BBC productions
Lambert moved on to produce another BBC show developed by Newman, the swashbuckling action-adventure series Adam Adamant Lives! (1966–67). The long development period of Adam Adamant delayed its production, and during this delay Newman gave her the initial episodes of a new soap opera, The Newcomers, to produce. Further productions for the BBC included a season of the crime drama Detective (1968–69) and a 26-part series of adaptations of the stories of William Somerset Maugham (1969).

In 1969 the comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus made reference to Lambert in a sketch entitled "Buying a Bed" from the episode "Full Frontal Nudity", which was broadcast on BBC 1 on 7 December 1969. Eric Idle plays a salesman named "Mr Verity" and Graham Chapman plays a salesman named "Mr Lambert".

In 1969 Lambert left the staff of the BBC to join London Weekend Television, where she produced Budgie (1970–72) and Between the Wars (1973). She returned to the BBC on a freelance basis to produce Shoulder to Shoulder (1974), a series of six 75-minute plays about the suffragette movement of the early 20th century.

Thames Television and Euston Films
Later in 1974, Lambert became Head of Drama at Thames Television. During her time in this position she oversaw several high-profile and successful contributions to the ITV network, including The Naked Civil Servant (1975), Rock Follies (1976–77), Rumpole of the Bailey (1978–92) and Edward and Mrs Simpson (1978). In 1976, she was also made responsible for overseeing the work of Euston Films, Thames' subsidiary film production company, at the time best known as the producers of The Sweeney. In 1979 she transferred to Euston full-time as the company's chief executive, overseeing productions such as Quatermass (1979), Minder (1979–94) and Widows (1983).

At Thames and Euston, Lambert enjoyed the most sustained period of critical and popular success of her career. The Naked Civil Servant won a British Academy Television Award (BAFTA) for its star John Hurt as well as a Broadcasting Press Guild Award and a prize at the Prix Italia; Rock Follies won a BAFTA and a Royal Television Society Award, while Widows also gained BAFTA nominations and ratings of over 12 million—unusually for a drama serial, it picked up viewers over the course of its six-week run. Minder became the longest-running series produced by Euston Films, surviving for over a decade following Lambert's departure from the company.

Television historian Lez Cooke described Lambert's time in control of the drama department at Thames as "an adventurous period for the company, demonstrating that it was not only the BBC that was capable of producing progressive television drama during the 1970s. Lambert wanted Thames to produce drama series 'which were attempting in one way or another to tackle modern problems and life,' an ambition which echoed the philosophy of her mentor Sydney Newman." Howard Schuman, the writer of Rock Follies, also later praised the bravery of Lambert's commissioning. "Verity Lambert had just arrived as head of drama at Thames TV and she went for broke," he told The Observer newspaper in 2002. "She commissioned a serial, Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill, for safety, but also Bill Brand, one of the edgiest political dramas ever, and us ... Before we had even finished making the first series, Verity commissioned the second."

Lambert's association with Thames and Euston Films continued into the 1980s. In 1982, she rejoined the staff of parent company Thames Television as director of drama, and was given a seat on the company's board. In November 1982 she left Thames, but remained as chief executive at Euston until leaving in November of the following year to take up her first post in the film industry, as director of production for Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment. Her job here was somewhat frustrating as the British film industry was in one of its periodic states of flux, but she did produce several feature films, including Clockwise (1986). Lambert later expressed some regret on her time in the film industry in a feature for The Independent newspaper. "Unfortunately, the person who hired me left, and the person who came in didn't want to produce films and didn't want me. While I managed to make some films I was proud of—Dennis Potter's Dreamchild, and Clockwise with John Cleese—it was terribly tough and not a very happy experience."

Cinema Verity
In late 1985, Lambert left Thorn EMI, frustrated at the lack of success and at restructuring measures being undertaken by the company. She established her own independent production company, Cinema Verity. The company's first production was the feature film A Cry in the Dark (1988), starring Sam Neill and Meryl Streep based on the "dingo baby" case in Australia. Cinema Verity's first television series, the BBC1 sitcom May to December, debuted in 1989 and ran until 1994. The company also produced another successful BBC1 sitcom, So Haunt Me, which ran from 1992 to 1994.

Lambert executive produced Alan Bleasdale's hard-hitting drama serial G.B.H. (1991), commissioned by Channel 4, which won several awards. Her relationship with Bleasdale was not entirely smooth — the writer has admitted in subsequent interviews that he "wanted to kill Verity Lambert" after she insisted on the cutting of large portions of his first draft script before production began. Bleasdale subsequently admitted that she was right about the majority of the cut material, and when the production was finished, he only missed one small scene from those she had demanded be excised.

A less successful Cinema Verity production was the soap opera Eldorado, a co-production with the BBC, set in a British expatriate community in Spain. At the time, it was the most expensive commission the BBC had given out to an independent production company. Launched with a major publicity campaign and running in a high-profile slot three evenings a week on BBC1, the series was critically mauled and lasted only a year, from 1992 to 1993. Lambert's biography at Screenonline suggests some reasons for this failure: "With on-location production facilities and an evident striving for a genuinely contemporary flavour, Lambert's costly Euro soap Eldorado suggested a degree of ambition ... which it seemed in the event ill-equipped to realise, and a potentially interesting subject tailed off into implausible melodrama. Eldorado's plotting ... was disappointingly ponderous. As a result, the expatriate community in southern Spain theme and milieu was exploited rather than explored."

Other reviewers, even the best part of a decade after the programme's cancellation, were much harsher, with Rupert Smith's comments in The Guardian in 2002 being a typical example. "A £10 million farce that left the BBC with egg all over its entire body and put an awful lot of Equity members back on the dole ... it will always be remembered as the most expensive flop of all time."

In the early 1990s, Lambert attempted to win the rights to produce Doctor Who independently for the BBC; this effort was unsuccessful because the corporation was already in negotiations with producer Philip Segal in the United States. Cinema Verity projects that did reach production included Sleepers (BBC1, 1991) and The Cazalets (BBC One, 2001), the latter co-produced by actress Joanna Lumley, whose idea it was to adapt the novels by Elizabeth Jane Howard.

Lambert continued to work as a freelance producer outside of her own company. She produced the popular BBC One comedy-drama series Jonathan Creek, by writer David Renwick, ever since taking over the role for its second series in 1998. From then until 2004, she produced eighteen episodes of the programme across four short seasons, plus two Christmas Specials. She and Renwick also collaborated on another comedy-drama, Love Soup, starring Tamsin Greig and transmitted on BBC One in the autumn of 2005. Her last work was to produce the second series of Love Soup.

In the 2002 New Year's Honours list Lambert was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to film and television production, and the same year she received BAFTA's Alan Clarke Award for Outstanding Contribution to Television.

Personal life
In 1973, Lambert married television director Colin Bucksey. They separated in 1984 and divorced in 1987. She had no children, once telling an interviewer, "I can't stand babies—no, I love babies as long as their parents take them away."

Death
Lambert died of cancer on 22 November 2007, in London, one day before the 44th anniversary of Doctor Who. She was due to have been presented with a lifetime achievement award at the Women in Film and Television Awards the following month. She was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium.

Legacy
In 2000, the Lambert productions Doctor Who and The Naked Civil Servant finished third and fourth respectively in a British Film Institute poll of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century.

In the 2007 Doctor Who episode "Human Nature", the Tenth Doctor refers to his parents as "Sydney" and "Verity", a tribute to both Newman and Lambert. She is further honoured in the episode "The End of Time" when the Doctor visits the great-granddaughter of Matron Joan Redfern, the human love interest he gave up to reclaim his Time Lord memories in the episode "Human Nature"; the character is named "Verity Newman". In the 2007 Christmas special "Voyage of the Damned", a dedication to Lambert was shown before the rolling of the end credits.

In April 2008, BBC Four aired an evening-long tribute to Lambert's work at the network, including a documentary and repeats of her most popular programmes. Also that year, the DVD release of The Time Meddler included the last commentary she made before her death, and a short documentary feature, Verity Lambert Obituary, described as "a concise essay looking back over the career of one of Doctor Who's co-creators."

For Doctor Who's fiftieth anniversary in 2013, the BBC commissioned a drama about the creation of the programme, entitled An Adventure in Space and Time. Lambert was played by actress Jessica Raine.

On 23 July 2014, a blue heritage plaque was unveiled by the Doctor Who Appreciation Society and the Riverside Trust, at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith in London. The plaque commemorates Lambert at Riverside and elsewhere. The plaque was unveiled by director Waris Hussein, her longtime friend and colleague, and the unveiling was attended by many friends and associates from over the years. When Riverside Studios was closed for redevelopment later that year, the plaque was placed into storage. In 2022 it was reinstalled on the exterior of the building and unveiled at a ceremony attended by many people from television, including actors Caroline Quentin, Larry Lamb, Carole Ann Ford and Anna Carteret, writer Lynda La Plante, former Doctor Who producers Philip Hinchcliffe and Steven Moffat, Ofcom chair Michael Grade, and former vision mixer Clive Doig.

Selected filmography

 * Doctor Who (1963–1965), producer
 * Adam Adamant Lives! (1966–1967), producer
 * Detective (1968), producer
 * Take Three Girls (1969), producer
 * W. Somerset Maugham (1969–1970), producer
 * Budgie (1971), producer
 * Between the Wars (1973), producer
 * The Silver Mask (1973), producer
 * A.D.A.M. (1973), producer
 * Achilles Heel (1973), producer
 * After Loch Lomond (1973), producer
 * Shoulder to Shoulder: Sylvia Pankhurst (1974), producer
 * The Naked Civil Servant (1975), executive producer
 * Rock Follies (1976), executive producer
 * Couples (1976), executive producer
 * The Norman Conquests (1977), producer
 * ITV Playhouse: Roadrunner (1977), executive producer
 * The Sailor's Return (1978), executive producer
 * Charlie Muffin (1979), executive producer
 * Quatermass (1979), executive producer
 * The Knowledge (1979), executive producer
 * A Performance of Macbeth (1979), executive producer
 * Fox: King Billy (1980), executive producer
 * The Flame Trees of Thika (1981), executive producer
 * Saigon: Year of the Cat (1983), producer
 * The Nation's Health (1983), executive producer
 * Reilly: Ace of Spies (1983), executive producer
 * Widows (1983), executive producer
 * Minder (1979–1984), executive producer
 * Morons from Outer Space (1985), executive producer
 * Clockwise (1986), executive producer
 * Link (1986), executive producer
 * Evil Angels (A Cry in the Dark) (1988), producer
 * American Roulette (1988), executive producer
 * Coasting: Offshore (1990), producer
 * G.B.H. (1991), executive producer
 * Sleepers (1991), executive producer
 * Boys from the Bush (1991), producer
 * Eldorado (1992), producer
 * Comics (1993), producer
 * Class Act (1994), producer
 * Heavy Weather (1995), producer
 * Temp (1995), producer
 * She's Out (1995), producer
 * A Perfect State (1997), executive producer
 * Jonathan Creek (1998–2004), producer
 * The Cazalets (2001), producer
 * Love Soup (2005–2007), producer
 * Doctor Who: A Happy Ending (2006), script editor

title: Verity Lambert


text:
1986 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1986.

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.

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 (Auslöschung)
 * Azouz Begag – Le Gone du Chaâba
 * Anita Brookner – A Misalliance
 * Orson Scott Card – Speaker for the Dead
 * Ana Castillo – Mixquiahuala Letters
 * 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
 * Hugh Cook – The Wizards and the Warriors
 * Bernard Cornwell – Sharpe's Regiment
 * Bernard & Judy Cornwell (as Susannah Kells) – Coat of Arms (also as The Aristocrats)
 * Fernando Del Paso – Noticias del Imperio
 * Marguerite Duras – Blue Eyes, Black Hair
 * James Ellroy – Silent Terror
 * Steve Erickson – Rubicon Beach
 * Nuruddin Farah – Maps (first part of Blood in the Sun trilogy)
 * Richard Ford – The Sportswriter
 * Katherine V. Forrest – An Emergence of Green
 * John Gardner – Nobody Lives For Ever
 * Jacques Godbout – Une Histoire américaine
 * 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
 * Brigitte Kronauer – Berittener Bogenschütze
 * 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
 * James Purdy – In the Hollow of His Hand
 * Jean Raspail – Who Will Remember the People...
 * Mercè Rodoreda (died 1983) – La mort i la primavera (Death in Spring)
 * José Saramago – The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis)
 * Ken Saro-Wiwa – Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English
 * Idries Shah – Kara Kush
 * Danielle Steel – Wanderlust
 * Peter Taylor – A Summons to Memphis
 * James Tiptree, Jr. – Tales of the Quintana Roo
 * Mario Vargas Llosa – Who Killed Palomino Molero? (¿Quién mató a Palomino Molero?)
 * 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)
 * Ann M. Martin
 * Kristy's Great Idea
 * Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls
 * The Truth about Stacey (first three in The Baby-Sitters Club series of over 200 books, 35 written by Martin)
 * 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

 * Premio Nadal: Manuel Vicent, Balada de Caín

title: 1986 in literature


text:
1985 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1985.

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.

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
 * Books of Blood
 * 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
 * Steve Erickson – Days Between Stations
 * 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)
 * Jane Gardam – Crusoe's Daughter
 * 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
 * Derek Lambert – The Man Who Was Saturday
 * Ursula K. Le Guin – Always Coming Home
 * Doris Lessing – The Good Terrorist
 * H. P. Lovecraft
 * At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels
 * The Dunwich Horror and Others (corrected edition)
 * Richard A. Lupoff – Lovecraft's Book
 * Cormac McCarthy – Blood Meridian
 * Larry McMurtry – Lonesome Dove
 * John D. MacDonald – The Lonely Silver Rain
 * James A. Michener – Texas
 * Brian Moore – Black Robe
 * Bharati Mukherjee – Darkness (short stories)
 * Iris Murdoch – The Good Apprentice
 * Orhan Pamuk – The White Castle (Beyaz Kale)
 * Ellis Peters – An Excellent Mystery
 * Caryl Phillips – The Final Passage
 * Peter Pohl – Johnny, My Friend (Janne, min vän)
 * Guy Rewenig – Hannert dem Atlantik (first novel in the Luxembourgish language)
 * Carl Sagan – Contact
 * Nava Semel – Kova Zekhukhit (Hat of Glass, short stories)
 * Sidney Sheldon – If Tomorrow Comes
 * Patrick Süskind – Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
 * 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
 * Kirsten Boie – Paule ist ein Glücksgriff
 * 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
 * Gordon Korman - Don't Care High
 * Patricia MacLachlan – Sarah, Plain and Tall
 * Laura Numeroff – If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
 * Pat O'Shea – The Hounds of the Morrigan
 * Bill Peet – The Kweeks of Kookatumdee
 * 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
 * Larry Kramer – The Normal Heart
 * 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
 * Timothy J. Cooney - Telling Right From Wrong
 * 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
 * Pauline Kael – State of the Art
 * 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
 * Crawford Young and Thomas Turner – The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State

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

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

 * Premio Nadal: Pau Faner Coll – Flor de sal

title: 1985 in literature


text:
Open Software Foundation

The Open Software Foundation (OSF) was a not-for-profit industry consortium for creating an open standard for an implementation of the operating system Unix. It was formed in 1988 and merged with X/Open in 1996, to become The Open Group.

Despite the similarities in name, OSF was unrelated to the Free Software Foundation (FSF, also based in Cambridge, Massachusetts), or the Open Source Initiative (OSI).

History
The organization was first proposed by Armando Stettner of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) at an invitation-only meeting hosted by DEC for several Unix system vendors in January 1988 (called the "Hamilton Group", since the meeting was held at DEC's offices on Palo Alto's Hamilton Avenue). It was intended as an organization for joint development, mostly in response to a perceived threat of "merged UNIX system" efforts by AT&T Corporation and Sun Microsystems. After discussion during the meeting, the proposal was tabled so that members of the Hamilton Group could broach the idea of a joint development effort with Sun and AT&T. In the meantime, Stettner was asked to write an organization charter. That charter was formally presented to Apollo, HP, IBM and others after Sun and AT&T rejected the overture by the Hamilton Group members.

The foundation's original sponsoring members were Apollo Computer, Groupe Bull, Digital Equipment Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Nixdorf Computer, and Siemens AG, sometimes called the "Gang of Seven". Later sponsor members included Philips and Hitachi with the broader general membership growing to more than a hundred companies. It was registered under the U.S. National Cooperative Research Act of 1984, which reduces potential antitrust liabilities of research joint ventures and standards development organizations.

The sponsors gave OSF significant funding, a broad mandate (the so-called "Seven Principles"), substantial independence, and support from sponsor senior management. Senior operating executives from the sponsoring companies served on OSF's initial Board of Directors. One of the Seven Principles was declaration of an "Open Process" whereby OSF staff would create Request for Proposals for source technologies to be selected by OSF, in a vendor neutral process. The selected technology would be licensed by the OSF to the public. Membership in the organization gave member companies a voice in the process for requirements. At the founding, five Open Process projects were named.

The organization was seen as a response to the collaboration between AT&T and Sun on UNIX System V Release 4, and a fear that other vendors would be locked out of the standardization process. This led Scott McNealy of Sun to quip that "OSF" really stood for "Oppose Sun Forever". The competition between the opposing versions of Unix systems became known as the Unix wars. AT&T founded the Unix International (UI) project management organization later that year as a counter-response to the OSF. UI was led by Peter Cunningham, formerly of International Computers Limited (ICL), as its president. UI had many of the same characteristics of OSF, with the exception of a software development staff. Unix System Laboratories (USL) filled the software development role, and UI was based in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey to be close to USL.

The executive staff of the Open Software Foundation included David Tory, President, formerly of Computer Associates; Norma Clarke, Vice-President Human Resources formerly of Mitre; Marty Ford, Vice-President Finance, formerly of DEC; Ira Goldstein, Vice-President Research Institute, formerly of Hewlett-Packard; Roger Gourd, Vice-President Engineering, formerly of DEC; Alex Morrow, Vice-President Strategy, formerly of IBM; Donal O'Shea, Vice-President of Operations, formerly of UniSoft. This staff added more than 300 employees in less than two years. The organization's headquarters were at 11 Cambridge Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, intentionally located in the neighborhood of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology along with remote development offices in Munich, Germany and Grenoble, France and field offices in Brussels and Tokyo. To the public, the organization appeared to be nothing more than an advocacy group; in reality it included a distributed software development organization.

An independent security software company - Addamax, filed suit in 1990 against OSF and its sponsors charging that OSF was engaged in anticompetitive practices. The court delivered a grant of summary judgment to OSF (152 F.3d 48, 50 (1st Cir.1998). In a related action in 1991, the Federal Trade Commission investigated OSF for allegedly using "unfair trade practices" in its "process for acquiring technology."

Products
OSF's Unix reference implementation was named OSF/1. It was first released in December 1990 and adopted by Digital a month later. As part of the founding of the organization, the AIX operating system was provided by IBM and was intended to be passed-through to the member companies of OSF. However, delays and portability concerns caused the OSF staff to cancel the original plan. Instead, a new Unix reference operating system using components from across the industry would be released on a wide range of platforms to demonstrate its portability and vendor neutrality. This new OS was produced in a little more than one year. It incorporated technology from Carnegie Mellon University: the Mach 2.5 microkernel; from IBM, the journaled file system and commands and libraries; from SecureWare secure core components; from Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) the computer networking stack; and a new virtual memory management system invented at OSF. By the time OSF stopped development of OSF/1 in 1996, the only major Unix system vendor using the complete OSF/1 package was Digital (DEC), which rebranded it Digital UNIX (later renamed Tru64 UNIX after Digital's acquisition by Compaq). However, other Unix vendors licensed the operating system to include various components of OSF/1 in their products. Other software vendors also licensed OSF/1 including Apple. Parts of OSF/1 were contained in so many versions of Unix that it may have been the most widely deployed Unix product ever produced.

Other technologies developed by OSF include Motif and Distributed Computing Environment (DCE), respectively a widget toolkit and package of distributed network computing technologies. The Motif toolkit was adopted as a formal standard within the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) as P1295 in 1994.

Filling out the initial (and what turned out to be final) five technologies from OSF were DME, the Distributed Management Environment and ANDF, the Architecturally Neutral Distribution Format. Technologies which were produced primarily by OSF included ODE, the Open Development Environment - a flexible development, build and source control environment; TET, the Test Environment Toolkit - an open framework for building and executing automated test cases; and the operating system OSF/1 MK from the OSF Research Institute based on the Mach3.0 microkernel. ODE and TET were made available as open source. TET was produced as a result of collaboration between OSF, UNIX International and the X/Open Consortium. All the OSF technologies had corresponding manuals and supporting publications produced almost exclusively by the staff at OSF and published by Prentice-Hall. IBM has published its version of ODE on GitHub.

Merger
By 1993, it had become clear that the greater threat to UNIX system vendors was not each other as much as the increasing presence of Microsoft in enterprise computing. In May, the Common Open Software Environment (COSE) initiative was announced by the major players in the UNIX world from both the UI and OSF camps: Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sun, Unix System Laboratories, and the Santa Cruz Operation. As part of this agreement, Sun and AT&T became OSF sponsor members, OSF submitted Motif to the X/Open Consortium for certification and branding and Novell passed control and licensing of the UNIX trademark to the X/Open Consortium.

In March 1994, OSF announced its new organizational model and introduced the COSE technology model as its Pre-Structured Technology (PST) process, which marked the end of OSF as a significant software development company. It also assumed responsibility for future work on the COSE initiative's Common Desktop Environment (CDE). In September 1995, the merger of OSF/Motif and CDE into a single project, CDE/Motif, was announced.

In February 1996 OSF merged with X/Open to become The Open Group.

title: Open Software Foundation


text:
1984 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1984.

Events

 * April 4 – The narrative of George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) begins and causes widespread discussion. G. K. Chesterton's The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) is also set in this year; and Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 (いちきゅうはちよん, Ichi-Kyū-Hachi-Yon, 2009–2010) is set in a parallel version of it.
 * June 16 – Cirque du Soleil is founded in Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, by two former street performers, Guy Laliberté and Gilles Ste-Croix.
 * July – Tom Wolfe's novel The Bonfire of the Vanities begins serialization in Rolling Stone.
 * December 19 – Ted Hughes' appointment as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom is announced in succession to Sir John Betjeman, Philip Larkin having turned down the post.
 * unknown dates
 * Prvoslav Vujčić's second poetry collection, Kastriranje vetra (Castration of the Wind), written during a week's imprisonment in Tuzla for criticising the state, is banned in Yugoslavia.
 * Of Mice and Men, the 1937 novel by John Steinbeck, is removed from Tennessee public schools, when the School Board Chair promises to oust all "ostensibly filthy" books from public school curricula and libraries.
 * Redu in Belgium becomes a book town.
 * Saqi Books, an independent U.K. publisher, is founded by Mai Ghoussoub.

Fiction

 * Warren Adler – Random Hearts
 * Kingsley Amis – Stanley and the Women
 * Martin Amis – Money
 * V. C. Andrews – Seeds of Yesterday
 * Jeffrey Archer – First Among Equals
 * Richard Bachman (Stephen King) – Thinner
 * J. G. Ballard – Empire of the Sun
 * Iain Banks – The Wasp Factory
 * René Barjavel – L'Enchanteur
 * Julian Barnes – Flaubert's Parrot
 * J. J. Benítez – Caballo de Troya
 * Thomas Bernhard – Woodcutters (Holzfällen)
 * J. Bernlef – Hersenschimmen (Out of Mind)
 * Michael Bishop
 * One Winter in Eden
 * Who Made Stevie Crye?
 * Simon Brett – A Shock to the System
 * David Brin – The Practice Effect
 * Anita Brookner – Hotel du Lac
 * Tom Clancy – The Hunt for Red October
 * Maryse Condé – Segou: les murailles de terre
 * Bernard & Judy Cornwell (as Susannah Kells) – Fallen Angels
 * Michel Déon – Je vous écris d'Italie
 * Marguerite Duras – L'Amant
 * Louise Erdrich – Love Medicine
 * Howard Fast – The Outsider
 * Leon Forrest – Two Wings to Veil My Face
 * Frederick Forsyth – The Fourth Protocol
 * John Gardner – Role of Honour
 * William Gibson – Neuromancer
 * William Golding – "The Paper Men"
 * Alasdair Gray – 1982, Janine
 * Kent Haruf – The Tie That Binds
 * Frank Herbert – Heretics of Dune
 * David Hughes – The Pork Butcher
 * John Jakes – Love and War
 * Stephen King, Peter Straub – The Talisman
 * Russell Kirk – Watchers at the Strait Gate
 * Jaan Kross – Professor Martens' Departure (Professor Martensi ärasõit)
 * Milan Kundera – The Unbearable Lightness of Being (first published in French as L'Insoutenable légèreté de l'être)
 * Sue Limb – Up the Garden Path
 * Robert Ludlum – The Aquitaine Progression
 * Norman Mailer – Tough Guys Don't Dance
 * Ruth Manning-Sanders – A Book of Magic Horses
 * Gladys Mitchell – The Crozier Pharaohs
 * M. T. Vasudevan Nair – Randamoozham (രണ്ടാമൂഴം, Second Turn)
 * Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk – Sanaaq
 * Kem Nunn - Tapping the Source
 * Robert B. Parker – Valediction
 * Milorad Pavić – Dictionary of the Khazars
 * Ellis Peters
 * Dead Man's Ransom
 * The Pilgrim of Hate
 * Mario Puzo – The Sicilian
 * Thomas Pynchon – Slow Learner: Early Stories
 * Christoph Ransmayr – The Terrors of Ice and Darkness
 * Pratibha Ray – Yajnaseni
 * Bob Shea and Robert Anton Wilson – The Illuminatus! Trilogy (collected edition)
 * Michael Slade – Headhunter
 * Danielle Steel – Full Circle
 * Neal Stephenson – The Big U (debut novel)
 * Botho Strauß – The Young Man
 * Robert Swindells – Brother in the Land
 * Antonio Tabucchi – Indian Nocturne (Notturno indiano, novella)
 * John Updike – The Witches of Eastwick
 * Gore Vidal – Lincoln
 * Tim Winton – Shallows
 * Janusz Zajdel – Paradyzja

Children and young people

 * Chris Van Allsburg – The Mysteries of Harris Burdick
 * Sandra Cisneros - The House on Mango Street
 * Helen Cresswell – The Secret World of Polly Flint
 * Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (comic book)
 * Mem Fox – Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge
 * Patricia Reilly Giff – The Beast in Ms. Rooney's Room (first in Polk Street School series)
 * Michelle Magorian – Back Home
 * Bill Peet – Pamela Camel
 * Dr. Seuss – The Butter Battle Book
 * J. R. R. Tolkien (with Michael Hague) – The Hobbit

Drama

 * Howard Barker – Scenes from an Execution
 * Howard Brenton – Bloody Poetry
 * Dario Fo – Elizabeth: Almost by Chance a Woman (Quasi per caso una donna: Elisabetta)
 * Michael Frayn – Benefactors
 * Beth Henley – The Miss Firecracker Contest
 * Elfriede Jelinek – Illness or Modern Women (Krankheit oder Moderne Frauen, published)
 * Joshua Sobol – Ghetto
 * Tom Stoppard – Rough Crossing

Poetry

 * John Ashbery – A Wave
 * Louise Erdrich – Jacklight
 * Christopher Gilbert – Across the Mutual Landscape
 * Paulette Jiles – Celestial Navigation
 * Sharon Olds – The Dead and the Living

Non-fiction

 * Charles Berlitz – Atlantis: The Eighth Continent
 * Church in Wales – Book of Common Prayer for use in the Church in Wales
 * Morrill Cody and Hugh Ford – The Women of Montparnasse, the Americans in Paris
 * Roald Dahl – Boy an autobiography
 * Louise Hay – You Can Heal Your Life
 * Lee Iacocca – Iacocca: An Autobiography
 * Pauline Kael – Taking It All In
 * Steven Levy – Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
 * Audre Lorde – Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
 * Robin Morgan (ed.) – Sisterhood Is Global
 * M. Alice Ottoboni – The Dose Makes the Poison: A Plain-Language Guide to Toxicology
 * Derek Parfit – Reasons and Persons
 * Joan Peters – From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine
 * Dan Simonescu – Contribuții: literatura română medievală (Contributions: Medieval Romanian Literature)
 * Herbert Jay Stern – Judgment in Berlin
 * E. O. Wilson – Biophilia: The Human Bond with Other Species

Births

 * February 19 - Marissa Meyer, American science-fiction author
 * April 16 – Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, American novelist
 * May 9 – Ezra Klein, American journalist and columnist
 * May 21 – Jackson Pearce, American young-adult novelist
 * June 5 – Simon Rich, American humorist, novelist and screenwriter
 * July 11 - Marie Lu, American young-adult novelist
 * July 12 – Amanda Hocking, American fantasy novelist
 * August 8 – Owen Jones, English columnist and author and commentator
 * October 13 - Lauren DeStefano, American young-adult author
 * November 20 – Halley Feiffer, American playwright and actress
 * December 10 – Helen Oyeyemi, English novelist and playwright

Deaths

 * February 12 – Julio Cortázar, Argentine novelist, short story writer and essayist (born 1914)
 * February 21 – Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Russian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1905)
 * February 22
 * Uwe Johnson, German writer in England (born 1934)
 * Jessamyn West, American novelist (born 1902)
 * March 4 – Odd Bang-Hansen, Norwegian novelist and children's writer (born 1908)
 * March 8 – Eleanor Graham, English children's writer and editor (born 1896)
 * March 12 – Arnold Ridley, English playwright and actor (born 1896)
 * March 26 – Branko Ćopić, Bosnian Serb writer (suicide, born 1915)
 * April 1 – Elizabeth Goudge, English writer (born 1900)
 * April 15
 * William Empson, English literary critic and poet (born 1906)
 * Alexander Trocchi, Scottish writer (born 1925)
 * April 21
 * Marcel Janco, Romanian–Israeli artist, art theorist, essayist and poet (born 1895)
 * Manuel Mujica Láinez, Argentine novelist (born 1910)
 * April 24 – Rafael Pérez y Pérez, Spanish writer (born 1891)
 * May 16 – Irwin Shaw, American playwright, screenwriter and novelist (born 1913)
 * May 19 – John Betjeman, English poet laureate (born 1906)
 * June 6
 * A. Bertram Chandler, English-Australian soldier and author (born 1912)
 * Hugh Sykes Davies, English poet and novelist (born 1909)
 * June 10 – Halide Nusret Zorlutuna, Turkish poet and novelist (born 1901)
 * June 30 – Lillian Hellman, American playwright (born 1905)
 * July 6 – Denys Val Baker, Welsh novelist and short story writer (born 1917)
 * July 9 – Margaret Wetherby Williams (Margaret Erskine), English crime novelist (born 1901])
 * August 14 – J. B. Priestley, English novelist and playwright (born 1894)
 * August 25 – Truman Capote (Truman Streckfus Persons), American fiction writer (born 1924)
 * September 7 – Liam O'Flaherty, Irish novelist and short story writer (born 1896)
 * October 31 – Eduardo De Filippo, Italian playwright (born 1900)
 * November 6 – Gastón Suárez, Bolivian novelist and dramatist (born 1929)
 * November 10 – Xavier Herbert, Australian novelist (born 1901)
 * November 12 – Chester Himes, American writer (born 1909)
 * December 4 – Ștefan Voitec, Romanian politician and journalist (born 1900)
 * December 6 – Gray Barker, American writer on paranormal (born 1925)
 * December 14 – Vicente Aleixandre, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1898)

Awards

 * Nobel Prize in Literature: Jaroslav Seifert

Australia

 * The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Kate Grenville, Lilian's Story
 * Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Les Murray, The People's Other World
 * Miles Franklin Award: Tim Winton, Shallows

Canada

 * See 1984 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

 * Prix Goncourt: Marguerite Duras, L'Amant
 * Prix Médicis French: Bernard-Henri Lévy, Le Diable en tête
 * Prix Médicis International: Elsa Morante, Aracoeli

Spain

 * Miguel de Cervantes Prize: Ernesto Sabato

United Kingdom

 * Betty Trask Award, established by Society of Authors, Prize: Ronald Frame, Winter Journey, Clare Nonhebel, Cold Showers
 * Booker Prize: Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac
 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Margaret Mahy, The Changeover
 * Cholmondeley Award: Michael Baldwin, Michael Hofmann, Carol Rumens
 * Eric Gregory Award: Martyn Crucefix, Mick Imlah, Jamie McKendrick, Bill Smith, Carol Ann Duffy, Christopher Meredith, Peter Armstrong, Iain Bamforth
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: J. G. Ballard, Empire of the Sun, and Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Lyndall Gordon, Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life
 * Whitbread Best Book Award: James Buchan, A Parish of Rich Women

United States

 * Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Arthur Smith, Elegy on Independence Day
 * Frost Medal: Jack Stadler
 * Nebula Award: William Gibson, Neuromancer
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Beverly Cleary, Dear Mr. Henshaw
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: David Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross
 * Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: William J. Kennedy – Ironweed
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Mary Oliver: American Primitive

Elsewhere

 * Premio Nadal: José de Tomás García – La otra orilla de la droga

title: 1984 in literature


text:
1983 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1983.

Events

 * April – The Russian samizdat poet Irina Ratushinskaya is sentenced to imprisonment in a labor camp for dissident activity. While there she continues to write poetry clandestinely.
 * June 2 – The Francophone Senegalese poet and politician Léopold Sédar Senghor becomes the first black African writer elected as a member of the Académie française.
 * July – Barbara Cartland, who reaches the age of 82, writes 23 romantic novels this year.
 * November – Bruce Bethke's short story "Cyberpunk", written in 1980, is published in Amazing Stories magazine in the United States, giving a name to the science fiction subgenre of cyberpunk.
 * unknown date – Salvage for the Saint by Peter Bloxsom and John Kruse is published, as the final book in a series of novels, novellas and short stories featuring the Leslie Charteris creation "The Saint", which started in 1928. (An attempt to revive the series in 1997 is unsuccessful.)

Fiction

 * Nelson Algren (posthumous) – The Devil's Stocking
 * Isaac Asimov – The Robots of Dawn
 * Greg Bear – The Wind from a Burning Woman
 * Samuel Beckett – Worstward Ho
 * Thomas Bernhard – The Loser (Der Untergeher)
 * Jorge Luis Borges – Shakespeare's Memory (La memoria de Shakespeare, short stories)
 * Marion Zimmer Bradley – The Mists of Avalon
 * Morley Callaghan – A Time for Judas
 * Raymond Carver – Cathedral
 * J. M. Coetzee – Life and Times of Michael K
 * Jackie Collins – Hollywood Wives
 * Basil Copper – The House of the Wolf
 * Bernard Cornwell
 * Sharpe's Sword
 * Sharpe's Enemy
 * Bernard and Judy Cornwell (as Susannah Kells) – A Crowning Glory
 * György Dalos – 1985
 * L. Sprague de Camp
 * The Reluctant King
 * The Unbeheaded King
 * Jim Dodge – Fup
 * Stephen R. Donaldson – White Gold Wielder: Book Three of The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
 * Nora Ephron – Heartburn
 * Ken Follett – On Wings of Eagles
 * Ernest J. Gaines – A Gathering of Old Men
 * John Gardner – Icebreaker
 * Mark Helprin – Winter's Tale
 * Susan Hill – The Woman in Black
 * Elizabeth Jolley – Woman in a Lamp Shade
 * Ernst Jünger – Aladdin's Problem
 * William Kennedy – Ironweed
 * Stephen King
 * Christine
 * Pet Sematary
 * Dean R. Koontz – Phantoms
 * Louis L'Amour – The Lonesome Gods
 * Derek Lambert – The Judas Code
 * John le Carré – The Little Drummer Girl
 * Mary Mackey – The Last Warrior Queen
 * Norman Mailer – Ancient Evenings
 * James A. Michener – Poland
 * R. K. Narayan – A Tiger for Malgudi
 * Robert B. Parker – The Widening Gyre
 * Ellis Peters
 * The Sanctuary Sparrow
 * The Devil's Novice
 * Tim Powers – The Anubis Gates
 * Terry Pratchett – The Colour of Magic
 * Salman Rushdie – Shame
 * Joanna Russ – The Zanzibar Cat
 * Danielle Steel – Changes
 * Peter Straub – Floating Dragon
 * Walter Tevis – The Queen's Gambit
 * Gore Vidal – Duluth
 * Evangeline Walton – The Sword Is Forged
 * Fay Weldon – The Life and Loves of a She-Devil
 * A. N. Wilson – Scandal
 * Robert Anton Wilson – Prometheus Rising
 * Christa Wolf – Cassandra (Kassandra)
 * Roger Zelazny – Unicorn Variations (stories and essays)

Children and young people

 * Chris Van Allsburg – The Wreck of the Zephyr
 * Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (with Willi Glasauer) – Beauty and the Beast
 * Roald Dahl – The Witches
 * Lynley Dodd – Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy (first of the Hairy Maclary and Friends series)
 * Mem Fox – Possum Magic
 * Dick King-Smith – The Sheep-Pig (also as Babe, the Gallant Pig)
 * Harold Lamb (with George Barr and Alicia Austin) - The Sea of the Ravens
 * Jean Giono (with Willi Glasauer) – The Man Who Planted Trees

Drama

 * Samuel Beckett – Nacht und Träume (television play, first broadcast)
 * Ray Cooney – Run for Your Wife
 * David Mamet – Glengarry Glen Ross
 * Tom Murphy – The Gigli Concert
 * Christina Reid – Tea in a China Cup
 * Larry Shue – The Foreigner
 * Neil Simon – Brighton Beach Memoirs
 * Botho Strauß – The Park (Der Park)

Poetry

 * Paul Durcan – Jumping the Train Tracks with Angela
 * Grace Nichols – I is a long-memoried woman

Non-fiction

 * Benedict Anderson – Imagined Communities
 * Pascal Bruckner – The Tears of the White Man
 * L. Sprague de Camp – The Fringe of the Unknown
 * L. Sprague de Camp, Catherine Crook de Camp and Jane Whittington Griffin – Dark Valley Destiny
 * Tom Dardis – Harold Lloyd: The Man on the Clock
 * Terry Eagleton – Literary Theory: An Introduction
 * Anthony Grey – The Prime Minister Was a Spy
 * Susan Oliver – Odyssey: A Daring Transatlantic Journey
 * Renée Richards – Second Serve: The Renée Richards Story
 * Colin Thubron – Among the Russians
 * A. N. Wilson – The Life of John Milton: A Biography

Births

 * November 17 – Christopher Paolini, American fantasy novelist
 * December 6 – Jason Reynolds, African American children's novelist and poet
 * unknown date – Sarah Howe, Hong Kong-born poet writing in English

Deaths

 * January 5 – Chapman Grant, American historian and publisher (born 1887)
 * January 18 – Colin Watson, English crime fiction writer (born 1920)
 * February 14 – Brita von Horn, Swedish theater director, dramatist and novelist (born 1886)
 * February 18 – Robert Payne, English author, poet and biographer (born 1911)
 * February 25 – Tennessee Williams (Thomas Lanier Williams III), American playwright (born 1911)
 * March 3 – Hergé (Georges Prosper Remi), Belgian comics creator (born 1907)
 * March 15 – Dame Rebecca West, British writer (born 1892)
 * April 12 – Desmond Bagley, English novelist (complications from stroke, born 1923))
 * May 4 – Shūji Terayama (寺山 修司), Japanese poet, dramatist, and film director (cirrhosis, born 1935)
 * May 21 – Amal Abul-Qassem Donqol, Egyptian poet (born 1940)
 * May 26 – Jack Hilton, British writer (born 1900)
 * June 19 – Vilmundur Gylfason, Icelandic historian, poet and politician (suicide, born 1948)
 * June 27 – Alden Nowlan, Canadian poet, novelist and playwright (born 1933)
 * July 27 – Gladys Mitchell, English crime fiction writer (born 1901)
 * August 12 – Mikey Smith, Jamaican dub poet (stoned to death; born 1954)
 * August 18 – Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, German-born British art historian (born 1902)
 * September 15 – Beverley Nichols, English writer and playwright (born 1898)
 * September 16 – Roy Andries De Groot, English-born American food writer (born 1910)
 * November 30 – Richard Llewellyn, British novelist (heart attack, born 1906)
 * December 5 – John Robinson, English religious writer and bishop (born 1919)
 * December 13 – Mary Renault, British novelist (born 1905)

Awards

 * Nobel Prize for Literature: William Golding

Australia

 * The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Jenny Summerville, Shields Of Trell
 * Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Vivian Smith, Tide Country
 * Miles Franklin Award: No award presented

Canada

 * See 1983 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

 * Prix Goncourt: Frédérick Tristan, Les Égarés
 * Prix Médicis French: Jean Echenoz, Cherokee
 * Prix Médicis International: Kenneth White, La Route bleue

Spain

 * Miguel de Cervantes Prize: Rafael Alberti

United Kingdom

 * Booker Prize: J. M. Coetzee -Life and Times of Michael K
 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Jan Mark, Handles
 * Cholmondeley Award: John Fuller, Craig Raine, Anthony Thwaite
 * Eric Gregory Award: Martin Stokes, Hilary Davies, Michael O'Neill, Lisa St Aubin De Teran, Deidre Shanahan
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Jonathan Keates, Allegro Postillions
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Alan Walker, Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years
 * Newdigate prize: Peter McDonald
 * Whitbread Best Book Award: John Fuller, Flying to Nowhere

United States

 * Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Kate Daniels, The White Wave
 * Nebula Award: David Brin, Startide Rising
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Cynthia Voigt, Dicey's Song
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Marsha Norman, 'Night, Mother
 * Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Alice Walker – The Color Purple
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Galway Kinnell – Selected Poems
 * Pulitzer Prize for History: The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 by Rhys Isaac
 * Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction: Is There No Place on Earth for Me? by Susan Sheehan

Elsewhere

 * Hugo Award for Best Novel: Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov
 * Premio Nadal: Salvador García Aguilar, Regocijo en el hombre

title: 1983 in literature