This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1980.
Events
- March 6 â Marguerite Yourcenar becomes the first woman elected to the Académie française.
- June 5
- The Royal Shakespeare Company opens a production at the Aldwych Theatre, London, of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, adapted from Charles Dickens's novel by David Edgar.
- Willy Russell's comedy Educating Rita opens in a Royal Shakespeare Company production with Julie Walters in the title rôle, at The Warehouse in London.
- September â A production of Shakespeare's Macbeth with Peter O'Toole in the lead opens at the Old Vic Theatre, London. It is often seen one of the disasters in theatre history.
- September 23 â The Field Day Theatre Company presents its first production, the première of Brian Friel's Translations, at the Guildhall, Derry, Northern Ireland.
- November 27 â The English playwright Harold Pinter marries the biographer and novelist Lady Antonia Fraser after divorcing the actress Vivien Merchant.
- December 8 â Mark David Chapman shoots John Lennon to death in New York City while carrying a copy of J. D. Salinger's 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, which he claims "is my statement."
- December 19 â Guatemalan poet AlaÃÂde Foppa is abducted and never seen again.
- unknown dates
- Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer (published 1979), tops The New York Times Best Seller list.
- Vasily Grossman's novel Life and Fate ("ÃÂø÷ýàø ÃÂÃÂôÃÂñð", completed 1959) is published for the first time, in Switzerland.
- The first Tibetan-language literature journal, Tibetan Literature and Art (), is published by the Tibet Autonomous Region Writers Association (TARWA); it features short stories.
- The novella "An Old Song", published anonymously in 1877 in the magazine London, is identified as Robert Louis Stevenson's first published work of fiction.
New books
Fiction
Children and young people
Drama
Poetry
Non-fiction
Births
- January 1 â Satya Vyas, Indian (Hindi language) writer
- May 1 â Jacek Dehnel, Polish poet, writer and translator
- May 10 â Cristina Nemerovschi, Romanian writer
- May 27 â Majlinda Nana Rama, Albanian pedagogue, writer and researcher
- June 5 â Nestan Kvinikadze, Georgian writer, scriptwriter and journalist
- September 11 â Dawit Kebede, Ethiopian journalist and publisher
- October 29 â Louie Jon Agustin Sanchez, Philippine poet, fiction writer, critic and journalist
- November 23 â Ishmael Beah, Siera Leonean author and human rights activist
Deaths
- January 3
- Joy Adamson, Silesian-born conservationist and writer living in Kenya (murdered, born 1910)
- George Sutherland Fraser, Scottish poet and critic (born 1915)
- January 11 â Barbara Pym, English novelist (cancer, born 1913)
- January 21 â Irene Rathbone, English novelist (born 1892)
- February 25 â Caradog Prichard, Welsh poet and novelist in Welsh (born 1904)
- March 12 â Eugeniu ÃÂtefÃÂnescu-Est, Romanian poet, novelist and cartoonist (born 1881)
- March 17 â P. M. Hubbard, English crime writer (born 1910)
- March 25 â James Wright, American poet (born 1927)
- March 26 â Roland Barthes, French literary theorist (born 1915)
- March 27 â Idris Jamma', Sudanese poet (died 1980)
- April 6 â John Collier, English-born American short story writer (born 1901)
- April 15 â Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher, novelist and dramatist (born 1905)
- April 24 â Alejo Carpentier, French Cuban novelist and writer (cancer, born 1904)
- May 7 â Margaret Cole, English political writer, biographer and activist (born 1893)
- May 16 â Marin Preda, Romanian novelist (asphyxiation, born 1922)
- June 7
- Salvator Gotta, Italian writer (born 1887)
- Henry Miller, American novelist (born 1891)
- June 20 â Amy Key Clarke, English mystical poet (born 1892)
- June 27 â Carey McWilliams, American author, editor and lawyer (born 1905)
- July 1 â C. P. Snow, English novelist and scientist (born 1905)
- July 6 â Mart Raud, Estonian poet, playwright and writer (born 1903)
- July 9 â Vinicius de Moraes, Brazilian poet and songwriter (born 1913)
- July 17 â Traian Herseni, Romanian social scientist and journalist (born 1907)
- July 23 â Olivia Manning, English novelist and poet (born 1908)
- July 26 â Kenneth Tynan, English-born theater critic (pulmonary emphysema, born 1927)
- August 8 â David Mercer, English dramatist (born 1928)
- August 10 â Gareth Evans, British philosopher (lung cancer, born 1946)
- September 18 â Katherine Anne Porter, American novelist and essayist (born 1890)
- September 19 â Jacky Gillott, English novelist (suicide, born 1939)
- October 26 â Sam Cree, Northern Irish playwright (born 1928)
- November 9 â Patrick Campbell, Irish journalist and wit (born 1913)
- December 2 â Romain Gary (Roman Kacew), French novelist (suicide, born 1914)
- December 8 â John Lennon, English musician, songwriter and author (murdered, born 1940)
- December 12 â Ben Travers, English playwright, screenwriter and novelist (born 1886)
- December 14 â Nichita SmochinÃÂ, Transnistrian Romanian ethnographer and journalist (born 1894)
- December 21
- Marc Connelly, American playwright (born 1890)
- Nelson Rodrigues, Brazilian playwright, journalist and novelist (born 1912)
- December 27 â Todhunter Ballard, American genre novelist (born 1903)
- December 31 â Marshall McLuhan, Canadian philosopher (born 1911)
Awards
Australia
Canada
France
United Kingdom
- Booker Prize: William Golding, Rites of Passage
- Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Peter Dickinson, City of Gold
- Cholmondeley Award: George Barker, Terence Tiller, Roy Fuller
- Eric Gregory Award: Robert Minhinnick, Michael Hulse, Blake Morrison, Medbh McGuckian
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Robert B. Martin, Tennyson: The Unquiet Heart
- Whitbread Best Book Award: David Lodge, How Far Can You Go?
United States
Elsewhere
Notes
References