1969 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1969.

Events

• February 8 – After 147 years, the last issue of The Saturday Evening Post in its original form appears in the United States.
• March 23 – German-born writer Assia Wevill, a mistress of the English poet Ted Hughes and ex-wife of the Canadian poet David Wevill, gasses herself and their daughter at her London home.
• April 22 – The first Booker-McConnell Prize for fiction is awarded to P. H. Newby for Something to Answer For.
• August – "Penelope Ashe", purported author of a bestselling novel, Naked Came the Stranger, is revealed as a group of Newsday journalists.
• unknown date – The Times Literary Supplement begins using the abbreviation "TLS" on its title page.

New books

Fiction

• Eva Alexanderson – Kontradans (Counter-dance)
• Eric Ambler – The Intercom Conspiracy
• Jorge Amado – Tenda dos Milagres (Tent of Miracles)
• Kingsley Amis – The Green Man
• William H. Armstrong – Sounder
• Penelope Ashe – Naked Came the Stranger
• Margaret Atwood – The Edible Woman
• René Barjavel – Les Chemins de Katmandou
• Ray Bradbury – I Sing the Body Electric
• Melvyn Bragg – The Hired Man
• Christianna Brand – Court of Foxes
• William S. Burroughs – The Last Words of Dutch Schultz
• Victor Canning – Queen's Pawn
• Louis-Ferdinand Céline – Rigadoon
• Agatha Christie – Hallowe'en Party
• Michael Crichton – The Andromeda Strain
• John Cheever – Bullet Park
• A. J. Cronin – A Pocketful of Rye
• Henry de Montherlant – Les Garçons (The Boys)
• L. Sprague de Camp – The Golden Wind
• Philip K. Dick – Ubik
• Marion Eames – Y Stafell Ddirgel (The Secret Room)
• John Fowles – The French Lieutenant's Woman
• George MacDonald Fraser – Flashman
• Paul Gallico – The Poseidon Adventure
• Rumer Godden – In This House of Brede
• Graham Greene – Travels with My Aunt
• Sam Greenlee – The Spook Who Sat by the Door
• Günter Grass – Local Anaesthetic (Örtlich betäubt)
• Frank Herbert – Dune Messiah
• Raymond Hitchcock – Percy
• Richard Horn – Encyclopedia
• Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter – Conan of Cimmeria
• B. S. Johnson – The Unfortunates
• David H. Keller – The Folsom Flint and Other Curious Tales
• Derek Lambert
• Angels in the Snow
• The Kites of War
• Ursula Le Guin – The Left Hand of Darkness
• Elmore Leonard – The Big Bounce
• Doris Lessing – The Four-Gated City
• H. P. Lovecraft and Others – Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
• John D. MacDonald – Dress Her in Indigo
• Félicien Marceau – Creezy
• Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫) – Runaway Horses
• Michael Moorcock – Behold the Man
• C. L. Moore – Jirel of Joiry
• Vladimir Nabokov – '
• M. T. Vasudevan Nair – Kaalam ("Time")
• Patrick O'Brian – Master and Commander
• 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
• Gabriel Ruhumbika – Village in Uhuru
• Giorgio Scerbanenco
• I milanesi ammazzano al sabato
• Milano calibro 9
• Irwin Shaw – Rich Man, Poor Man
• Dag Solstad – Irr! Grønt!
• Rex Stout – Death of a Dude
• Jacqueline Susann – The Love Machine
• Theodore Taylor – The Cay
• Colin Thiele – Blue Fin
• Jack Vance
• The Dirdir
• Emphyrio
• Servants of the Wankh
• Mario Vargas Llosa – Conversation in The Cathedral
• Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse-Five
• Charity Waciuma – Daughter of Mumbi
• Irving Wallace – The Seven Minutes
• Keith Waterhouse – Everything Must Go
• Colin Wilson – The Philosopher's Stone
• Roger Zelazny
• Creatures of Light and Darkness
• Damnation Alley
• Isle of the Dead

Children and young people

• Rev. W. Awdry – Oliver the Western Engine (twenty-fourth in The Railway Series of 42 books by him and his son Christopher Awdry)
• Eric Carle – The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• Frances Carpenter – South American Wonder Tales
• Penelope Farmer – Charlotte Sometimes
• Rumer Godden – Operation Sippacik
• Gary Paulsen – Mr. Tucket (first in Mr. Tucket series)
• Barbara Sleigh – The Snowball
• William Steig – Sylvester and the Magic Pebble
• John Rowe Townsend – The Intruder
• Elfrida Vipont with Raymond Briggs – The Elephant and the Bad Baby
• Anne de Vries – Into the Darkness (first in the Reis door de nacht series of five books)

Drama

• Leilah Assunção – Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito (Speak Quietly or I’ll Scream)
• Aimé Césaire – Une Tempête
• Dario Fo – Mistero Buffo
• Athol Fugard – Boesman and Lena
• Joe Orton – What the Butler Saw (posthumously premiered and published)
• Michael Pertwee – She's Done It Again
• Dennis Potter – Son of Man (television)
• Dalmiro Sáenz – Quién yo? (Who me?)
• David Storey – In Celebration
• Paul Zindel – Let Me Hear You Whisper

Poetry

• James Schuyler – Freely Espousing

Non-fiction

• Dean Acheson – '
• Maya Angelou – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
• Fernand Braudel – Ecrits sur l'Histoire (translated as On History, 1980)
• H. Rap Brown – Die Nigger Die!
• Henri Charrière – Papillon
• L. Sprague de Camp and George H. Scithers (editors) – The Conan Swordbook
• Antonia Fraser – Mary Queen of Scots
• Søren Hansen and Jesper Jensen – The Little Red Schoolbook (Den Lille Røde Bog For Skoleelever)
• Pauline Kael – Going Steady
• Anton LaVey – The Satanic Bible
• Laurie Lee – As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning
• Dwight Macdonald – On Movies
• Desmond Morris – The Human Zoo
• Harold Perkin – The Origins of Modern English Society 1780–1880
• Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull – The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong
• David Reuben – Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)

Births

• January – Adrian Goldsworthy, Welsh military historian and novelist
• January 12 – David Mitchell, English novelist
• January 17 – Michael Moynihan, American journalist and publisher
• January 21 – M. K. Hobson, American speculative fiction author
• March – Jez Butterworth, English dramatist and screenwriter
• May 6 – Emmanuel Larcenet, French comics author
• May 6 – John Scalzi, American science-fiction author
• May 28 – Muriel Barbery, French novelist
• May 29 – Qiu Miaojin (邱妙津), Korean-born novelist (suicide 1995)
• June 13 – Virginie Despentes, French writer
• July 5 – Armin Kõomägi, Estonian author and screenwriter
• August 4 – Jojo Moyes, English journalist and romantic novelist
• September 12 – James Frey, American writer
• September 30 – Julianna Baggott, American novelist, essayist, and poet
• October 15 – Nora Ikstena, Latvian writer (died 2026)
• October 24 – Emma Donoghue, Irish-born Canadian novelist, dramatist, and academic
• November 13 – John Belluso, American dramatist (died 2006)
• November 28 – Hanne Ørstavik, Norwegian novelist
• November 30 – David Auburn, American dramatist
• December 12 – Sophie Kinsella, English novelist (died 2025)
• unknown dates
• John Harris, English writer, journalist and critic
• Tom McCarthy, English novelist

Deaths

• January 11 – Richmal Crompton, English children's writer (born 1890)
• January 21 – Giovanni Comisso, Italian writer (born 1895)
• March 9 – Charles Brackett, American novelist and screenwriter (born 1892)
• March 11 – John Wyndham, English science fiction novelist (born 1903)
• March 24 – Margery Fish, English gardening writer (born 1892)
• March 25 – Max Eastman, American writer (born 1883)
• March 26 – John Kennedy Toole, American novelist (suicide, born 1937)
• March 27 – B. Traven, presumed German-born novelist (unknown year of birth)
• April 6 – Gabriel Chevallier, French writer (born 1895)
• April 7 – Rómulo Gallegos, Venezuelan novelist and politician, 48th President of Venezuela (born 1884)
• May 4 – Osbert Sitwell, English novelist and poet (born 1892)
• July 24 – Witold Gombrowicz, Polish playwright and novelist (born 1904)
• July 27 – Vivian de Sola Pinto, English poet and memoirist (born 1895)
• August 10 – Maurine Dallas Watkins, American journalist/play and screenwriter (born 1896)
• August 14 – Leonard Woolf, English political theorist (born 1880)
• August 27 – Ivy Compton-Burnett, English novelist (born 1884)
• September 6 – Gavin Maxwell, Scottish naturalist and author (cancer, born 1914)
• September 17 – Greye La Spina, American dramatist and short story writer (born 1880)
• September 20 – Elinor Brent-Dyer, English children's writer (born 1894)
• September 22 – Rachel Davis Harris, African American librarian (born 1869)
• October 14 – August Sang, Estonian poet and literary translator (born 1914)
• October 21 – Jack Kerouac, American novelist and poet (internal hemorrhage, born 1922)
• November 6 – Susan Taubes, Hungarian American writer and Jewish intellectual (suicide, born 1928)
• November 15 – Ignacio Aldecoa, Spanish writer (born 1925)

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
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: K. M. Peyton, The Edge of the Cloud
• 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

• Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Alexander Mitscherlich
• Miles Franklin Award: George Johnston, Clean Straw for Nothing
• Premio Nadal: Francisco García Pavón Las hermanas coloradas
• Viareggio Prize: Fulvio Tomizza, L'albero dei sogni

References