1986 in literature

Births

Deaths

• January 24 - L. Ron Hubbard, science fiction writer, founder of Scientology
• February 26 - Robert Penn Warren, poet, author
• March 4 - Elizabeth Smart, Canadian poet and novelist
• May 15 - Theodore H. White, writer
• June 14 - Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer
• August 20 - Milton Acorn, Canadian poet, writer, and playwright

Awards

• Booker Prize: Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils
• See 1986 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Nebula Award: Orson Scott Card, Speaker For the Dead
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Patricia MacLachlan, Sarah, Plain and Tall
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Wole Soyinka
• 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
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Henry Taylor, The Flying Change
• Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World