This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1988.
Events
New books
Fiction
Children and young people
Drama
Poetry
Non-fiction
Births
Deaths
- January 6 â L. P. Davies, English novelist (born 1914)
- February 1 â Gerald Butler, English crime writer (born 1907)
- February 3 â Robert Duncan, American poet (born 1919)
- February 6 â Marghanita Laski, English biographer, novelist and broadcaster (born 1915)
- February 27 â Basil Boothroyd, English poet and humorist (born 1910)
- February 28 â Kylie Tennant, Australian novelist, playwright and historian (born 1912)
- March 11 â Christianna Brand (Mary Christianna Lewis), British crime novelist (born 1907)
- March 19 â MáirtÃÂn àDireáin, Irish-language poet (born 1910)
- April 12 â Alan Paton, South African novelist and political activist (born 1903)
- April 15 â Modest Morariu, Romanian poet, essayist, prose writer and translator (born 1929)
- April 21 â I. A. L. Diamond, Bessarabian-born American comedy writer (born 1920)
- May 3 â Premendra Mitra, Bengali poet, novelist and short story writer (born 1904)
- May 8 â Robert A. Heinlein, American science fiction writer (born 1907)
- May 10 â Shen Congwen, Chinese writer (born 1902)
- May 23 â Aya KitÃ
Â, Japanese diarist (born 1962)
- June 6 â Gheorghe Eminescu, Romanian historian and memoirist (lung disease, born 1890)
- June 10 â Louis L'Amour, American western novelist (born 1908)
- June 21 â George IvaÃÂcu, Romanian journalist, literary critic, and communist militant (born 1911)
- July 10
- Noel Barber, British novelist (born 1909)
- Enrique Lihn, Chilean poet, playwright, and novelist (cancer, born 1929)
- July 12 â Joshua Logan, American stage and film writer (born 1908)
- August 2 â Raymond Carver, American short-story writer and poet (born 1938)
- August 20 â Joan G. Robinson, English children's writer and illustrator (born 1910)
- August 23 â Menotti Del Picchia, Brazilian poet, journalist and painter (born 1892)
- August 28 â Max Shulman, American novelist, short-story writer and dramatist (born 1919)
- September 11 â Roger Hargreaves, English children's author and illustrator (born 1935)
- September 28 â Charles Addams, American cartoonist (born 1912)
- October 1 â Sacheverell Sitwell, English writer and art critic (born 1897)
- October 10 â Bhabani Bhattacharya, Indian fiction writer (born 1906)
- October 12 â Ruth Manning-Sanders, British children's author (born 1895)
- October 16
- John Gwilym Jones, Welsh dramatist and writer (born 1904)
- Christian Matras, Faroese poet (born 1900)
- November 2 â Stewart Parker, Northern Irish poet and playwright (cancer, born 1941)
- November 8 â Hamad al-Hajji, Saudi Arabian poet (born 1939)
- November 9 â Rosemary Timperley, British novelist (born 1920)
- December 11 â Thomas Owen Beachcroft, English novelist (born 1902)
- December 16 â Frank Bonham, American western and young adult novelist (born 1914)
Awards
Australia
Canada
France
United Kingdom
- Booker Prize: Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda
- Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Geraldine McCaughrean, A Pack of Lies
- Cholmondeley Award: John Heath-Stubbs, Sean O'Brien, John Whitworth
- Eric Gregory Award: Michael Symmons Roberts, Gwyneth Lewis, Adrian Blackledge, Simon Armitage, Robert Crawford
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Piers Paul Read, A Season in the West
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein, A Life: Young Ludwig (1889âÂÂ1921)
- Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Derek Walcott
- Whitbread Best Book Award: Paul Sayer, The Comforts of Madness
- The Sunday Express Book of the Year: David Lodge, Nice Work
United States
- Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Maxine Scates, Toluca Street
- Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Richard Wilbur
- Frost Medal: Carolyn Kizer
- National Book Award for Fiction: Pete Dexter, Paris Trout
- National Book Critics Circle: Bharati Mukherjee, The Middleman and Other Stories
- Nebula Award: Lois McMaster Bujold, Falling Free
- Newbery Medal for children's literature: Russell Freedman, '
- PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: T. Coraghessan Boyle, World's End
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Alfred Uhry, Driving Miss Daisy
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Toni Morrison, Beloved
- Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: William Meredith: Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems
- Whiting Awards: Fiction: Lydia Davis, Bruce Duffy, Jonathan Franzen, Mary La Chapelle, William T. Vollmann. Nonfiction: Gerald Early, Geoffrey O'Brien. Poetry: Michael Burkard, Li-Young Lee, Sylvia Moss
Spain
Elsewhere
References