1979 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1979.

Events

April 13 – The Adventure of Sudsakorn, the only cel-animated feature film ever made in Thailand, is released to cinemas. It is based on Phra Aphai Mani, a 30,000-line epic written by Thailand's best-known poet, Sunthorn Phu.^[1]
May – Première of the Merchant Ivory Productions film The Europeans, with screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala based on Henry James' novel The Europeans (1878).
October 25 – The London Review of Books is first published by founding editors Karl Miller, Mary-Kay Wilmers and Susannah Clapp; for its first six months it appears as an insert to The New York Review of Books.^[2]
K. W. Jeter's novel Morlock Night pioneers full-length fiction in the genre he will later call steampunk.
August Wilson's Jitney is first produced; it will become the eighth of his "Pittsburgh Cycle".
Dambudzo Marechera's The House of Hunger wins the Guardian Fiction Prize.

New books

Poetry

Kingsley Amis – Collected Poems

Non-fiction

David Attenborough – Life on Earth
Jerome Bruner – On Knowing. Essays for the Left Hand
L. Sprague de Camp, editor – The Blade of Conan
Elizabeth Eisenstein – The Printing Press as an Agent of Change
John Fowles – The Tree
Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar – The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination
Douglas Hofstadter – Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Henry Kissinger – The White House Years
Leon Litwack – Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery
Jean-François Lyotard – The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (La Condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir)
Stephen Pile – The Book of Heroic Failures
Clark Ashton Smith – The Black Book of Clark Ashton Smith
Margaret Trudeau – Beyond Reason

Births

February 4 – Ben Lerner, American poet, novelist and critic
February 10 – Johan Harstad, Norwegian novelist^[4]
March 28 – Benjamin Percy, American short story writer
June 28 – Florian Zeller, French novelist and dramatist
Unknown dates
- D.D. Johnston, Scottish political novelist and university lecturer
- Emily St. John Mandel, Canadian-born novelist

Deaths

January – Dilys Cadwaladr, Welsh-language poet (born 1902)
January 27 – Victoria Ocampo, Argentine publisher, writer and critic (born 1890)
February 9 – Allen Tate, American poet and essayist (born 1899)
February 25 – John L. Wasserman, American entertainment critic (car accident, born 1938)
February 27 – Sir George Clark, English historian (born 1890)
March 26 – Jean Stafford, American short story writer and novelist (heart failure, born 1915)
April 8 – Breece D'J Pancake, American short story writer (suicide, born 1952)
May 10 – J. B. Morton (Beachcomber), English humorous newspaper columnist (born 1893)
May 14 – Jean Rhys, Dominica, West Indies-born English novelist (born 1890)
June 3 – Arno Schmidt, German novelist (born 1914)
June 7 – Forrest Carter, American genre novelist (heart failure, born 1925)
July 6 – Malcolm Hulke, English TV writer (born 1924)
July 21 – Eugène Vinaver, Russian-born English literary scholar (born 1899)
July 23 – Joseph Kessel, French journalist and novelist (born 1898)
July 29 – Herbert Marcuse, German Jewish philosopher (born 1898)
August 8 – Nicholas Monsarrat, English novelist (born 1910)
August 16 – Jerzy Jurandot (Jerzy Glejgewicht), Polish poet and dramatist (born 1911)
September 25 – Zhou Libo (周立波), Chinese novelist and translator (born 1908)
October 6 – Elizabeth Bishop, American poet (born 1911)
October 17 – S. J. Perelman, American humorist (born 1904)
October 18 – Virgilio Piñera, Cuban poet and short-story writer (born 1912)
December 12 – Goronwy Rees, Welsh journalist and academic (born 1909)
December 19 – Donald Creighton, Canadian historian (born 1902)

Awards

Nobel Prize for Literature: Odysseus Elytis

Canada

See 1979 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

Prix Goncourt:
Prix Médicis French:
Prix Médicis International:

Spain

Miguel de Cervantes Prize: Jorge Luis Borges and Gerardo Diego

United Kingdom

Booker Prize: Penelope Fitzgerald, Offshore
Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Peter Dickinson, Tulku
Cholmondeley Award:
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: William Golding, Darkness Visible
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Brian Finney, Christopher Isherwood: A Critical Biography

United States

Elsewhere

Miles Franklin Award: David Ireland, A Woman of the Future
Premio Nadal: Carlos Rojas, El ingenioso hidalgo y poeta Federico García Lorca asciende a los infiernos
Viareggio Prize: Giorgio Manganelli, Centuria

References

^ Danutra, Pattara; Himes, Robert (2004-01-01). "Payut Ngaokrachang: The Master of Thai Animations".
^ Grimes, William (2011-06-20). "A. Whitney Ellsworth, First Publisher of New York Review, Dies at 75". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-06-20.
^ Stoppard plays at http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsS/stoppard-tom.html#33484
^ Brageprisen nominations 2010.

[1] Danutra, Pattara; Himes, Robert (2004-01-01). "Payut Ngaokrachang: The Master of Thai Animations".

[2] Grimes, William (2011-06-20). "A. Whitney Ellsworth, First Publisher of New York Review, Dies at 75". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-06-20.

[3] Stoppard plays at http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsS/stoppard-tom.html#33484

[4] Brageprisen nominations 2010.

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[2]

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Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards

Canada

France

Spain

United Kingdom

United States

Elsewhere

References