1985 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1985.

Events

 * February 25 – Sue Limb's parodic pastiche of the Lake Poets, The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere, begins broadcasting on BBC Radio 4 in the U.K.
 * March 1 – The GNU Manifesto by Richard Stallman is published for the first time, and becomes a fundamental philosophical source within the free software movement.
 * August 11 – A memorial to the poet Hugh MacDiarmid is unveiled near his home at Langholm, Scotland.
 * unknown dates – Three notable novels in English by female authors are published during the year: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Jilly Cooper's Riders, the first of the Rutshire Chronicles, and Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.

Fiction

 * Isaac Asimov – Robots and Empire
 * Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid's Tale
 * Jean M. Auel – The Mammoth Hunters
 * Iain Banks – Walking on Glass
 * Clive Barker
 * Books of Blood
 * The Damnation Game
 * Greg Bear
 * Blood Music
 * Eon
 * M. C. Beaton – Death of a Gossip
 * Thomas Bernhard – Old Masters: a comedy (Alte Meister: Komödie)
 * Anthony Burgess – The Kingdom of the Wicked
 * Orson Scott Card – Ender's Game
 * Jilly Cooper – Riders
 * Bernard Cornwell – Sharpe's Honour
 * Don DeLillo – White Noise
 * Friedrich Dürrenmatt – The Execution of Justice (Justiz)
 * Bret Easton Ellis – Less than Zero
 * Steve Erickson – Days Between Stations
 * John Fowles – A Maggot
 * Carlos Fuentes – The Old Gringo (Gringo Viejo)
 * William Gaddis – Carpenter's Gothic
 * Gabriel García Márquez – Love in the Time of Cholera (El amor en los tiempos del cólera)
 * Jane Gardam – Crusoe's Daughter
 * Alasdair Gray – The Fall of Kelvin Walker: A Fable of the Sixties
 * Graham Greene – The Tenth Man
 * Amy Hempel – Reasons to Live 
 * Frank Herbert – Chapterhouse: Dune
 * John Irving – The Cider House Rules
 * Garrison Keillor – Lake Wobegon Days
 * Stephen King – Skeleton Crew
 * László Krasznahorkai – Satantango
 * Derek Lambert – The Man Who Was Saturday
 * Ursula K. Le Guin – Always Coming Home
 * Doris Lessing – The Good Terrorist
 * H. P. Lovecraft
 * At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels
 * The Dunwich Horror and Others (corrected edition)
 * Richard A. Lupoff – Lovecraft's Book
 * Cormac McCarthy – Blood Meridian
 * Larry McMurtry – Lonesome Dove
 * John D. MacDonald – The Lonely Silver Rain
 * James A. Michener – Texas
 * Brian Moore – Black Robe
 * Bharati Mukherjee – Darkness (short stories)
 * Iris Murdoch – The Good Apprentice
 * Orhan Pamuk – The White Castle (Beyaz Kale)
 * Ellis Peters – An Excellent Mystery
 * Caryl Phillips – The Final Passage
 * Peter Pohl – Johnny, My Friend (Janne, min vän)
 * Guy Rewenig – Hannert dem Atlantik (first novel in the Luxembourgish language)
 * Carl Sagan – Contact
 * Nava Semel – Kova Zekhukhit (Hat of Glass, short stories)
 * Sidney Sheldon – If Tomorrow Comes
 * Patrick Süskind – Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
 * Sue Townsend – Rebuilding Coventry
 * Anne Tyler – The Accidental Tourist
 * Andrew Vachss – Flood
 * Kurt Vonnegut – Galápagos
 * Jeanette Winterson – Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
 * Roger Zelazny – Trumps of Doom

Children and young people

 * Chester Aaron – Out of Sight, Out of Mind
 * Pamela Allen – A Lion in the Night
 * Chris Van Allsburg – The Polar Express
 * Frank Asch – I Can Blink
 * Kirsten Boie – Paule ist ein Glücksgriff
 * Robert Cormier – Beyond the Chocolate War
 * Roald Dahl – The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me
 * Virginia Hamilton (with Leo and Diane Dillon) – The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales
 * Gordon Korman - Don't Care High
 * Patricia MacLachlan – Sarah, Plain and Tall
 * Laura Numeroff – If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
 * Pat O'Shea – The Hounds of the Morrigan
 * Bill Peet – The Kweeks of Kookatumdee
 * Cynthia Rylant – A Blue-Eyed Daisy
 * Jacqueline Wilson – How to Survive Summer Camp (novel)
 * Elizabeth Winthrop – The Castle in the Attic

Drama

 * Peter Brook and Jean-Claude Carrière (adapted) – Mahabharata
 * Christopher Hampton (adapted) – Les Liaisons Dangereuses
 * David Hare and Howard Brenton – Pravda
 * Larry Kramer – The Normal Heart
 * Wallace Shawn – Aunt Dan and Lemon
 * Sam Shepard – A Lie of the Mind
 * Neil Simon – Biloxi Blues
 * August Wilson – Fences

Poetry

 * Carol Ann Duffy – Standing Female Nude

Non-fiction

 * Bill Bryson – The Palace under the Alps and Over 200 Other Unusual, Unspoiled and Infrequently Visited Spots in 16 European Countries
 * Roger Caron – Bingo! The Horrifying Eyewitness Account of a Prison Riot
 * Allen Carr – The Easy Way to Stop Smoking
 * Timothy J. Cooney - Telling Right From Wrong
 * Michael Denton – Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
 * Elaine Dundy – Elvis and Gladys
 * Julien Gracq – The Shape of a City
 * G. L. Harriss (editor) – Henry V: The Practice of Kingship
 * Ernest Hemingway – The Dangerous Summer 
 * Pauline Kael – State of the Art
 * David Lowenthal – The Past Is a Foreign Country
 * Walter A. McDougall – ...The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age
 * Tim O'Brien – The Nuclear Age
 * Priscilla Beaulieu Presley – Elvis and Me
 * David Robinson – Chaplin: His Life and Art
 * Oliver Sacks – The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
 * Roger Scruton – Thinkers of the New Left
 * Gary Soto – Living Up the Street
 * Crawford Young and Thomas Turner – The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State

Births

 * February 7 - Justina Ireland, American science-fiction and fantasy author of young-adult fiction
 * April 24 – Alexander Zeldin, British playwright and director
 * September 24 – Eleanor Catton, New Zealand novelist
 * September 30 – Téa Obreht, Yugoslav-born American novelist writing in English

Deaths

 * January 1 – Sigerson Clifford, Irish poet, playwright, and civil servant (born 1913)
 * January 5 – Alexis Rannit, Estonian-born American poet and critic (born 1914)
 * February 6 – James Hadley Chase, English thriller novelist (born 1906)
 * February 19 – Carl Joachim Hambro, Norwegian novelist, essayist and philologist (born 1914)
 * March 15 – Radha Krishna Choudhary, Indian historian and philosopher (born 1921)
 * April 4 – Kate Roberts, Welsh writer (born 1891)
 * April 7 – Carl Schmitt, German political theorist (born 1888)
 * April 17
 * Basil Bunting, English poet (born 1900)
 * D. I. Suchianu, Romanian essayist, translator, social scientist and film theorist (born 1895)
 * April 25 – Uku Masing, Estonian religious philosopher, linguist and writer (born 1909)
 * May 1 – Denise Robins, English romantic novelist (born 1897)
 * May 12 – Josephine Miles, American poet and literary critic (born 1911)
 * May 18 – Hedley Bull, Australian economist (cancer, born 1932)
 * May 25 – Robert Nathan, American novelist and poet (born 1894)
 * June 8 – Hu Feng (胡风), Chinese novelist (born 1902)
 * June 16 – Ernst Orvil, Norwegian novelist, poet and playwright (born 1898)
 * July 16 – Heinrich Böll, German novelist, Nobel laureate (born 1917)
 * July 8 – Leslie Paul, Anglo-Irish novelist (born 1905)
 * July 29 – Judah Waten, Australian novelist (born 1911)
 * August 14 – Alfred Hayes, English-born American novelist, poet and screenwriter (born 1911)
 * August 30 – (Janet) Taylor Caldwell, English-born American novelist (born 1900)
 * September 1 – Saunders Lewis, Welsh writer and broadcaster (Plaid Cymru) (born 1893)
 * September 17 – Fran Ross, African American satirist (born 1935)
 * September 22 – D. J. Opperman, South African Afrikaans poet (born 1914)
 * September 27 – Leonard Gribble, English novelist (born 1908)
 * October 1 – E. B. White, American children's writer and writer on style (born 1899)
 * October 11 – Alex La Guma, South African novelist and political activist (born 1925)
 * October 24 – László Bíró, Hungarian journalist and inventor (born 1899)
 * October 31 – Nikos Engonopoulos, Greek poet (born 1903)
 * November 3 – J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, English historian (born 1916)
 * November 4 – Hilda Vaughan, Welsh novelist and short story writer (born 1892)
 * November 6 – Sara Woods, British crime fiction writer (born 1922)
 * November 11 – James Hanley, English-born novelist and dramatist of Irish extraction (born 1897)
 * November 25
 * Geoffrey Grigson, English poet and critic (born 1905)
 * Elsa Morante, Italian novelist (born 1912)
 * November 27 – Fernand Braudel, French historian (born 1902)
 * December 2 – Philip Larkin, English poet (born 1922)
 * December 5 – Mihail Celarianu, Romanian poet and novelist (born 1893)
 * December 7 – Robert Graves, English novelist, poet and critic (born 1895)

Awards

 * Nobel Prize for Literature: Claude Simon

Australia

 * The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: no award given out this year
 * C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Kevin Hart, Your Shadow; Rosemary Dobson, The Three Fates
 * Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, Kevin Hart, Your Shadow
 * Mary Gilmore Prize: Doris Brett, The Truth about Unicorns
 * Miles Franklin Award: Christopher Koch, The Doubleman

Canada

 * See 1985 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

 * Prix Goncourt: Yann Queffélec, Les Noces barbares
 * Prix Médicis French: Michel Braudeau, Naissance d'une passion
 * Prix Médicis International: Joseph Heller, God Knows

Spain

 * Miguel de Cervantes Prize: Gonzalo Torrente Ballester

United Kingdom

 * Booker Prize: Keri Hulme, The Bone People
 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Kevin Crossley-Holland, Storm
 * Cholmondeley Award: Dannie Abse, Peter Redgrove, Brian Taylor
 * Eric Gregory Award: Graham Mort, Adam Thorpe, Pippa Little, James Harpur, Simon North, Julian May
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Robert Edric, Winter Garden
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: David Nokes, Jonathan Swift: A Hypocrite Reversed
 * Newdigate Prize: Robert Twigger
 * Whitbread Best Book Award: Douglas Dunn, Elegies

United States

 * Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Liz Rosenberg, The Fire Music
 * American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Poetry, Robert Penn Warren
 * Frost Medal: Robert Penn Warren
 * Nebula Award: Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: James Lapine for book; Stephen Sondheim for music and lyrics, Sunday in the Park With George
 * Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Alison Lurie – Foreign Affairs
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Carolyn Kizer: Yin
 * Whiting Awards (inaugural year):
 * Fiction: Raymond Abbott, Stuart Dybek, Wright Morris (fiction/nonfiction), Howard Norman, James Robison, Austin Wright (fiction/nonfiction)
 * Poetry: Douglas Crase, Jorie Graham, Linda Gregg, James Schuyler

Elsewhere

 * Premio Nadal: Pau Faner Coll – Flor de sal