1981 in literature

See also: 1980 in literature, other events of 1981, 1982 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• February 24 - Jean Harris is convicted of murdering Dr. Herman Tarnower, the author of the bestselling The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction given for the first time

New Books

• Ill Seen Ill Said - Samuel Beckett
• Arabian Nights and Days - Naguib Mahfouz
• La Bicyclette Bleue (The Blue Bicycle) - Régine Deforges
• Bliss - Peter Carey
• Creation - Gore Vidal
• Cujo - Stephen King
• Distant Star - Samuel R. Delany
• Famous Last Words - Timothy Findley
• Flames Across the Border - Pierre Berton
• The Glitter Dome - Joseph Wambaugh
• The Golden Age of Science Fiction - Kingsley Amis
• Goodbye, Janette - Harold Robbins
• Gorky Park - Martin Cruz Smith
• Hotel New Hampshire - John Irving
• An Indecent Obsession - Colleen McCullough
• Masquerade - Kit Williams
• Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
• No Time for Tears - Cynthia Freeman
• Nobel House - James Clavell
• Martin Amis
• Red Dragon - Thomas Harris
• Strata - Terry Pratchett
• Tar Baby - Toni Morrison
• The Third Deadly Sin - Lawrence Sanders

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Births

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Deaths

• January 6 - A.J. Cronin, writer

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Awards

• Booker Prize: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Chidlren
• See 1981 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Nebula Award: Gene Wolfe, The Claw of the Conciliator
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Katherine Paterson, Jacob Have I Loved
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Elias Canetti
• Prix Goncourt: Lucien Bodard, Anne Marie
• Prix Médicis French: François-Olivier Rousseau, L'Enfant d'Édouard
• Prix Médicis International: David Shahar, Le Jour de la comtesse
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Beth Henley, Crimes of the Heart
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: William Boyd, A Good Man in Africa