1981 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1981.

EventsEdit

May 31 – The burning of Jaffna Public Library in Sri Lanka is begun by a mob of police and government-sponsored paramilitaries. They destroy over 97,000 volumes in one of the worst examples of ethnic book burning in the modern era.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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August – Sefer ve Sefel opens as an English used bookstore in Jerusalem.
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- John Gardner successfully revives the James Bond novel series originated by Ian Fleming with Licence Renewed (not counting a faux biography of Bond and a pair of film novelizations, the first original Bond novel since 1968's Colonel Sun). The revived Bond book series will run uninterrupted until 2002.
- Colin MacCabe is denied tenure at the University of Cambridge, apparently because of a dispute within the English Faculty about the teaching of structuralism.<ref>Newsweek, 16 February 1981, p. 95; see also Philip Lewis, "The Post-Structuralist Condition", Diacritics 12:1 (1982): 2–24, p. 2.</ref>
- The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is given for the first time.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

New booksEdit

FictionEdit

Eric Ambler – The Care of Time
Kingsley Amis (ed.) – The Golden Age of Science Fiction
Martin Amis – Other People
V. C. Andrews – If There Be Thorns
Louis Auchincloss – The Cat and the King
René Barjavel – Une rose au paradis<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Samuel Beckett – Ill Seen Ill Said
Thomas Berger – Reinhart's Women
Pierre Berton – Flames Across the Border
William Boyd – A Good Man in Africa
Pascal Bruckner – Evil Angels
William S. Burroughs – Cities of the Red Night
Robert Olen Butler – The Alleys of Eden
Peter Carey – Bliss
Raymond Carver – What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
David Case – The Third Grave
James Clavell – Noble House
Bernard Cornwell
- Sharpe's Eagle
- Sharpe's Gold
John Crowley – Little, Big
L. Sprague de Camp – The Hand of Zei
L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp – Footprints on Sand
Régine Deforges – La Bicyclette bleue (The Blue Bicycle)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Samuel R. Delany – Distant Star
Michel Déon – Where Are You Dying Tonight? (Un déjeuner de soleil)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Cynthia Freeman – No Time for Tears
Gabriel García Márquez – Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Crónica de una muerte anunciada)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
John Gardner – Licence Renewed
Charles L. Grant – Tales from the Nightside
Alasdair Gray – Lanark<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Jan Guillou – Ondskan<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Thomas Harris – Red Dragon
Frank Herbert – God Emperor of Dune
Douglas Hill – Planet of the Warlord
Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp – The Flame Knife
John Irving – The Hotel New Hampshire
Rona Jaffe – Mazes and Monsters
Alan Judd – A Breed of Heroes
Ismail Kadare – The File on H (Dosja J)
Stephen King – Cujo
Dean Koontz (as Leigh Nichols) – The Eyes of Darkness
Chart Korbjitti – Khamphiphaksa (The Judgment)
Joe R. Lansdale – Act of Love
Stanisław Lem – Golem XIV
Colleen McCullough – An Indecent Obsession
Elliot S! Maggin – Miracle Monday
Naguib Mahfouz – Arabian Nights and Days (ليالي ألف ليلة)
Ian McEwan – The Comfort of Strangers
Toni Morrison – Tar Baby
Robert B. Parker
- A Savage Place
- Early Autumn
Ellis Peters
- Saint Peter's Fair
- The Leper of Saint Giles
Terry Pratchett – Strata
Bano Qudsia – Raja Gidh ("King Vulture")
Alain Robbe-Grillet – Djinn
Harold Robbins – Goodbye, Janette
Salman Rushdie – Midnight's Children
Lawrence Sanders – The Third Deadly Sin
Martin Cruz Smith – Gorky Park
Muriel Spark – Loitering with Intent
Botho Strauß – Couples, Passersby (Paare, Passanten) (stories)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Paul Theroux – The Mosquito Coast
D. M. Thomas – The White Hotel
John Updike – Rabbit Is Rich
Jack Vance – The Book of Dreams
Gore Vidal – Creation
Joseph Wambaugh – The Glitter Dome
Kit Williams – Masquerade
Gene Wolfe
- The Claw of the Conciliator
- The Sword of the Lictor
Roger Zelazny
- The Changing Land
- Madwand

Children and young peopleEdit

Chris Van Allsburg – Jumanji<ref>Hahn 2015, p. 609</ref>
Hans Christian Andersen (with Jane S. Woodward and Michael Hague) – Michael Hague's Favourite Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales
Judy Blume – Tiger Eyes<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Beverly Cleary – Ramona Quimby, Age 8<ref name=Stein>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Eth Clifford – The Dastardly Murder of Dirty Pete<ref name=Stein />
Roald Dahl – George's Marvellous Medicine<ref>Hahn 2015, p. 227</ref>
Rumer Godden – The Dragon of Og<ref name=Stein />
Roger Hargreaves – Little Miss (first 13 books in the Little Miss series of 21)
Florence Parry Heide – Treehorn's Treasure<ref name=Stein />
Harold Lamb (with George Barr and Alicia Austin) – Durandal
Michael de Larrabeiti – The Borribles Go for Broke
Janet Lunn – The Root Cellar
Patricia Lynch – The Turf-Cutter's Donkey
Michelle Magorian – Goodnight Mister Tom<ref>Hahn 2015, p. 236</ref>
C. L. Moore (with Alicia Austin) - Scarlet Dream
Uri Orlev – The Island on Bird Street (האי ברחוב הציפורים)
Ruth Park – The Muddle-Headed Wombat is Very Bad
Bill Peet – Encore for Eleanor
Alvin Schwartz – Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Maurice Sendak – Outside Over There<ref>Hahn 2015, pp. 526-527</ref>
Jan Wahl – The Cucumber Princess<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Robert Westall – The Scarecrows<ref>Hahn 2015, p. 620</ref>

DramaEdit

Samuel Beckett – Rockaby<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Edward Bond – Restoration
Tankred Dorst – Merlin oder das wüste Land
John Krizanc – Tamara
Larry Shue – The Nerd
Barney Simon – Woza Albert!
Botho Strauß – Kalldewey, Farce
Patrick Süskind – Der Kontrabaß
Peter Whelan – The Accrington Pals
Tennessee Williams – The Notebook of Trigorin

PoetryEdit

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L. Sprague de Camp – Heroes and Hobgoblins
Mehr Lal Soni Zia Fatehabadi – Rang-o-Noor (The Colour and the Light)
Norman Nicholson – Sea to the West
Sylvia Plath (posthumous) – Collected Poems, edited by Ted Hughes
Kathleen Raine – Collected Poems, 1935–1980
Richard L. Tierney – Collected Poems

Non-fictionEdit

Maya Angelou – The Heart of a Woman
Colin Robert Chase – The Dating of Beowulf
Mary Chesnut – Mary Chesnut's Civil War
Hugo Brandt Corstius – Opperlandse taal- & letterkunde
Daniel Dennett – Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology
Nancy Dorian – Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect
Timothy Findley – Famous Last Words
Stephen Jay Gould – The Mismeasure of Man
Dumas Malone – The Sage of Monticello
V. S. Naipaul – Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey
Giovanni Pettinato – The Archives of Ebla: An Empire Inscribed in Clay<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Anne Scott-James – The Cottage Garden
Viktor Suvorov – The Liberators

BirthsEdit

Jan 4 – Sarah Crossan, Irish young-adult writer
April 7 – Lili Wilkinson, Australian young-adult writer
May 19 – Kiera Cass, American young-adult writer
May 20 – Ottessa Moshfegh, American novelist
June 10 – Juno Dawson, born James Dawson, English young-adult LGBT writer
July 10 – Karen Russell, American novelist
July 27 – Dan Jones, British historian and TV presenter
September 30 – Cecelia Ahern, Irish novelist
October 3 – Leïla Slimani, Franco-Moroccan novelist<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
October 12 – NoViolet Bulawayo (Elizabeth Zandile Tshele), Zimbabwe-born novelist<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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October 31 – Irina Denezhkina, Russian writer
December 11 – Hamish Blake, Australian comedian, actor and author
December 13 – Mathis Bailey, American-Canadian novelist and fiction writer
unknown dates
- Amy Sackville, English novelist<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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- Sunjeev Sahota, English novelist<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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- Saud Alsanousi, Kuwaiti novelist
- Olesya Mamchich, Ukrainian poet and children's writer<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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DeathsEdit

January 5 – Lanza del Vasto, Italian-born philosopher, poet and activist (born 1901)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
January 6 – A. J. Cronin, Scottish novelist (born 1896)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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