1969 in literature

The year 1969 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

* The first Booker Prize is awarded.
* "Penelope Ashe", author of the bestselling novel "Naked Came the Stranger", is found to be several people who each took a turn writing a chapter of what they described as "junk" in order to prove that sex-filled trash sells. It did.

New books

*Jorge Amado - "Tenda dos Milagres ("Tent of Miracles")
*Kingsley Amis - "The Green Man"
*Poul Anderson - "Satan's World"
*William H. Armstrong - "Sounder"
*Penelope Ashe - "Naked Came the Stranger"
*Margaret Atwood - "The Edible Woman"
*Ray Bradbury - "I Sing the Body Electric"
*William S. Burroughs - "The Last Words of Dutch Schultz"
*Merton H. Coleman - "That Godless Woman"
*March Cost - "The Veiled Sultan"
*Michael Crichton - "The Andromeda Strain"
*John Cheever - "Bullet Park"
*A. J. Cronin - "A Pocketful of Rye"
*L. Sprague de Camp - "The Golden Wind"
*Marion Eames - "Y Stafell Ddirgel (The Secret Room)"
*John Fowles - "The French Lieutenant's Woman"
*Graham Greene - "Travels with My Aunt"
*Sam Greenlee - "The Spook Who Sat By the Door"
*Günter Grass - "Örtlich betäubt" ("Local Anaesthetic")
*Frank Herbert - "Dune Messiah"
*Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter - "Conan of Cimmeria"
*David H. Keller - "The Folsom Flint and Other Curious Tales"
*Elmore Leonard - "The Big Bounce"
*Doris Lessing - "The Four-Gated City"
*H. P. Lovecraft and Others - "Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos"
*Yukio Mishima - "Runaway Horses"
*Michael Moorcock - "Behold the Man"
*C. L. Moore - "Jirel of Joiry"
*Vladimir Nabokov - ""
*Don Pendleton - "War Against The Mafia"
*Chaim Potok - "The Promise"
*Manuel Puig - "Little Painted Mouths"
*Mario Puzo - "The Godfather"
*Ellery Queen - "The Campus Murders"
*Pauline Réage - "Retour à Roissy"
*Mordecai Richler - "The Street"
*Harold Robbins - "The Inheritors"
*Philip Roth - "Portnoy's Complaint"
*Irwin Shaw - "Rich Man, Poor Man"
*Raymond Spence - "Nothing Black But A Cadillac"
*Rex Stout - "Death of a Dude"
*Edward Streeter - "Ham Martin, Class of '17"
*Jacqueline Susann - "The Love Machine"
*Theodore Taylor - "The Cay"
*Colin Thiele - "Blue Fin"
*Jack Vance
**"The Dirdir"
**"Emphyrio"
**"Servants of the Wankh"
*Kurt Vonnegut - "Slaughterhouse-Five"
*Irving Wallace - "The Seven Minutes"
*Roger Zelazny
**"Creatures of Light and Darkness"
**"Damnation Alley"
**"Isle of the Dead"

New drama

*Athol Fugard - "Boesman and Lena"
*Joe Orton - "What the Butler Saw" (posthumously published)
*Dennis Potter - "Son of Man" (television)

Poetry

*James Schuyler - "Freely Espousing"

Non-fiction

*Maya Angelou - "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings".
*L. Sprague de Camp and George H. Scithers, editors - "The Conan Swordbook".
*Antonia Fraser - "Mary Queen of Scots".
*Peter Geach - "God and the Soul".
*Desmond Morris - "The Human Zoo"

Births

*January - David Mitchell, novelist
*January 17 - Michael Moynihan, journalist and publisher
*May 6 - Emmanuel Larcenet, comics author
*November 3 - Rik Woods, poet
*November 13 - John Belluso, dramatist
*"date unknown"
**David Auburn, dramatist
**Adrian Goldsworthy, military historian
**John Harris, journalist

Deaths

* January 11 - Richmal Crompton, author
* March 11 - John Wyndham, British author
* March 26 - John Kennedy Toole, author
* March 27 - B. Traven, writer
* May 4 - Osbert Sitwell, novelist, poet, brother of Edith Sitwell and Sacheverell Sitwell
* July 24 - Witold Gombrowicz, playwright and novelist
* August 14 - Leonard Woolf, political theorist and husband of Virginia Woolf
* September 6 - Gavin Maxwell, naturalist and author
* September 20 - Elinor Brent-Dyer, "Chalet School" author
* October 21 - Jack Kerouac, author
* "date unknown" - Vivian de Sola Pinto, poet and memoirist
* "date unknown" - Greye La Spina, writer

Awards

* Nobel Prize for Literature: Samuel Beckett

Canada

* See 1969 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

* Prix Goncourt: Félicien Marceau, "Creezy"
* Prix Médicis: Hélène Cixous, "Dedans"

United Kingdom

* Booker Prize: P. H. Newby - "Something to Answer For"
* Cholmondeley Award: Derek Walcott, Tony Harrison
* Eric Gregory Award: Gavin Bantock, Jeremy Hooker, Jenny King, Neil Powell, Landeg E. White
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Elizabeth Bowen, "Eva Trout"
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Antonia Fraser, "Mary, Queen of Scots"
* Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Stevie Smith

United States

* American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Tennessee Williams
* Hugo Award: John Brunner, "Stand on Zanzibar"
* Nebula Award: Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Left Hand of Darkness"
* Newbery Medal for children's literature: Lloyd Alexander, "The High King"
* Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Howard Sackler, "The Great White Hope"
* Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: N. Scott Momaday - "House Made of Dawn"
* Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: George Oppen: "Of Being Numerous"

Elsewhere

*Premio Nadal: Francisco García Pavón ("Las hermanas coloradas"
*Viareggio Prize: Fulvio Tomizza, "L'albero dei sogni"