1981 in literature

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

Events

 * 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.
 * August – Sefer ve Sefel opens as an English used bookstore in Jerusalem.
 * unknown dates
 * 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.
 * The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is given for the first time.

Fiction

 * 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
 * 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)
 * Samuel R. Delany – Distant Star
 * Michel Déon – Where Are You Dying Tonight? (Un déjeuner de soleil)
 * Cynthia Freeman – No Time for Tears
 * Gabriel García Márquez – Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Crónica de una muerte anunciada)
 * John Gardner – Licence Renewed
 * Charles L. Grant – Tales from the Nightside
 * Alasdair Gray – Lanark
 * Jan Guillou – Ondskan
 * 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)
 * 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 people

 * Chris Van Allsburg – Jumanji
 * Hans Christian Andersen (with Jane S. Woodward and Michael Hague) – Michael Hague's Favourite Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales
 * Judy Blume – Tiger Eyes
 * Beverly Cleary – Ramona Quimby, Age 8
 * Eth Clifford – The Dastardly Murder of Dirty Pete
 * Roald Dahl – George's Marvellous Medicine
 * Rumer Godden – The Dragon of Og
 * Roger Hargreaves – Little Miss (first 13 books in the Little Miss series of 21)
 * Florence Parry Heide – Treehorn's Treasure
 * 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
 * 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
 * Jan Wahl – The Cucumber Princess
 * Robert Westall – The Scarecrows

Drama

 * Samuel Beckett – Rockaby
 * 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

Poetry

 * 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-fiction

 * 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
 * Anne Scott-James – The Cottage Garden
 * Viktor Suvorov – The Liberators

Births

 * 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
 * October 12 – NoViolet Bulawayo (Elizabeth Zandile Tshele), Zimbabwe-born novelist
 * 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
 * Sunjeev Sahota, English novelist
 * Saud Alsanousi, Kuwaiti novelist
 * Olesya Mamchich, Ukrainian poet and children's writer

Deaths

 * January 5 – Lanza del Vasto, Italian-born philosopher, poet and activist (born 1901)
 * January 6 – A. J. Cronin, Scottish novelist (born 1896)
 * January 7 – John Pascal, American playwright, screenwriter, author and journalist (born 1932)
 * January 23 – Lobsang Rampa (Cyril Henry Hoskin), English author (born 1910)
 * February 3 – Normand Poirier, American newspaper editor, journalist and essayist (born 1928)
 * February 17 – David Garnett, English novelist (born 1892)
 * February 23 – Nan Shepherd, Scottish novelist and poet (born 1893)
 * March 7 – Bosley Crowther, American film critic (born 1905)
 * March 14 – Eleanor Perry, American screenwriter and author (born 1914)
 * March 20 – Pedro García Cabrera, Spanish poet (born 1905)
 * March 29 – Clive Sansom, English-born Tasmanian poet and playwright (born 1910)
 * March 31 – Enid Bagnold, English writer and playwright (born 1889)
 * April 1 – D. F. Jones, English science fiction writer (born 1918)
 * April 13 – Gwyn Thomas, Welsh novelist and broadcaster (born 1913)
 * April 23 – Josep Pla, Catalan Spanish journalist and writer (born 1897)
 * April 26 – Robert Garioch, Scottish poet (born 1909)
 * May 8 – Uri Zvi Grinberg, Israeli poet writing in Hebrew and Yiddish (born 1896)
 * May 9 – Nelson Algren, American novelist (born 1909)
 * May 18 – William Saroyan, American novelist and dramatist (born 1908)
 * May 23 – Rayner Heppenstall, English writer and poet (born 1911)
 * May 30 – Gwendolyn B. Bennett, African-American writer and artist (born 1902)
 * June 15 – Philip Toynbee, English novelist and journalist (born 1916)
 * June 17 – Zerna Sharp, American writer and educator (born 1889)
 * June 18 – Pamela Hansford Johnson, English poet, novelist, playwright, literary and social critic (born 1912)
 * August 15 – Carol Ryrie Brink, American author (born 1895)
 * September 3 – Alec Waugh, English novelist (born 1898)
 * September 7 – Christy Brown, Irish writer and painter (born 1932)
 * September 12 – Eugenio Montale, Italian poet (born 1896)
 * October 20 – Mary Coyle Chase, American playwright (born 1906)
 * October 25 – Cynthia Harnett, English children's writer (born 1893)
 * October 30 – Denys Rhodes, English novelist (born 1919)
 * November 6 – Digby George Gerahty, English novelist (born 1898)
 * November 30 – Charles Eric Maine, English science fiction writer (born 1921)
 * December 9 – C. P. Taylor, Scottish playwright (born 1929)
 * December 26 – Amber Reeves, New Zealand-born English scholar, feminist and novelist (born 1887)

Awards

 * Nobel Prize for Literature: Elias Canetti

Australia

 * The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Chris Matthews, Al Jazzar; Tim Winton, An Open Swimmer
 * Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Alan Gould, Astral Sea
 * Miles Franklin Award: Peter Carey, Bliss

Canada

 * See 1981 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

 * 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

Spain

 * Miguel de Cervantes Prize: Octavio Paz

United Kingdom

 * Booker Prize: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children
 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Robert Westall, The Scarecrows
 * Cholmondeley Award: Roy Fisher, Robert Garioch, Charles Boyle
 * Eric Gregory Award: Alan Jenkins, Simon Rae, Marion Lomax, Philip Gross, Kathleen Jamie, Mark Abley, Roger Crowley, Ian Gregson
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children, and Paul Theroux, The Mosquito Coast
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Victoria Glendinning, Edith Sitwell: Unicorn Among Lions 
 * Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: D. J. Enright
 * Whitbread Best Book Award: William Boyd, A Good Man in Africa

United States

 * Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Kathy Calloway, Heart of the Garfish
 * American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Belles Lettres: Malcolm Cowley
 * Dos Passos Prize: Gilbert Sorrentino
 * Nebula Award: Gene Wolfe, The Claw of the Conciliator
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Katherine Paterson, Jacob Have I Loved
 * 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: James Schuyler: The Morning of the Poem

Elsewhere

 * Hugo Award for Best Novel: The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge
 * Premio Nadal: Carmen Gómez Ojea, Cantiga de aguero