1976 in literature
Encyclopedia
The year 1976 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

  • Saul Bellow
    Saul Bellow
    Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...

     won both the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
    Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
    The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. It originated as the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which was awarded between 1918 and 1947.-1910s:...

    .

New books

  • Kingsley Amis
    Kingsley Amis
    Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...

     – The Alteration
    The Alteration
    The Alteration is a 1976 alternate history novel by Kingsley Amis, set in a parallel universe in which the Reformation did not take place. It won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1977.-Creative origins:...

  • Saul Bellow
    Saul Bellow
    Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...

     – To Jerusalem and Back
  • Peter Benchley
    Peter Benchley
    Peter Bradford Benchley was an American author, best known for his novel Jaws and its subsequent film adaptation, the latter co-written by Benchley and directed by Steven Spielberg...

     – The Deep
  • Judy Blume
    Judy Blume
    Judy Blume is an American author. She has written many novels for children and young adults which have exceeded sales of 80 million and been translated into 31 languages...

    • Blubber
      Blubber (novel)
      Blubber is a young adult novel by Judy Blume first published in 1974. The protagonist is Jill Brenner, a Pennsylvania fifth-grader who joins her classmates in ostracizing and bullying Linda, an awkward and overweight girl...

    • Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
      Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
      Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing is a children's novel written by Judy Blume in 1972. It is the first of the "Fudge books". It was followed by Superfudge, Fudge-A-Mania and, most recently, Double Fudge...

  • Erma Bombeck
    Erma Bombeck
    Erma Louise Bombeck was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for her newspaper column that described suburban home life from the mid-1960s until the late 1990s...

     – The Grass is Always Greener over the Septic Tank
  • Marjorie Bowen – Kecksies and Other Twilight Tales
    Kecksies and Other Twilight Tales
    Kecksies and Other Twilight Tales is a collection of stories by author Marjorie Bowen. It was released in 1976 and was the author's first collection of stories published in the U.S....

  • William F. Buckley – Saving the Queen
    Saving the Queen
    Saving the Queen is a 1976 Blackford Oakes novel by William F. Buckley, Jr.. It was the first of 11 novels in the series.-Plot:It reveals Oakes's childhood and educational background, his recruitment into the CIA, and Agency's procedures for "handling" him...

    ... The first in the Blackford Oakes
    Blackford Oakes
    Blackford "Blackie" or "Black" Oakes is a fictional character, a Central Intelligence Agency officer and the protagonist of a series of novels written by William F. Buckley, Jr.-Early life:...

     series
  • Anthony Burgess
    Anthony Burgess
    John Burgess Wilson  – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...

     – Beard's Roman Women
    Beard's Roman Women
    Beard's Roman Women is a 1976 novel by British novelist Anthony Burgess.Dated "Montalbuccio-Monte Carlo-Eze-Callian, Summer 1975", according to Burgess it was written in the back of his Bedford Dormobile and "partly in the bedroom of a small hotel run by Swiss homosexuals" .The novel is set in Rome...

  • Ramsey Campbell
    Ramsey Campbell
    John Ramsey Campbell is an English horror fiction author.Since he first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: T. E. D. Klein has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today", while S. T...

     The Height of the Scream
    The Height of the Scream
    The Height of the Scream is a collection of horror stories by author Ramsey Campbell. Released in 1976 in an edition of 4,348 copies, it was the author's third collection of stories to be published by Arkham House....

  • Raymond Carver
    Raymond Carver
    Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....

     Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
    Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
    Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, published in 1976, was the first short-story collection by American writer Raymond Carver. This minimalist collection revolves around themes of segregation and disenchantment in American families. -“Neighbors”:...

  • Agatha Christie
    Agatha Christie
    Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...

     – Sleeping Murder
    Sleeping Murder
    Sleeping Murder: Miss Marple's Last Case is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in October 1976 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed for £3.50 and the US edition for $7.95...

  • A. J. Cronin
    A. J. Cronin
    Archibald Joseph Cronin was a Scottish physician and novelist. His best-known works are Hatter's Castle, The Stars Look Down, The Citadel, The Keys of the Kingdom and The Green Years, all of which were adapted to film. He also created the Dr...

     – Lady With Carnations
  • L. Sprague de Camp
    L. Sprague de Camp
    Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction and fantasy books, non-fiction and biography. In a writing career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and notable works of non-fiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors...

     – The Virgin & the Wheels
    The Virgin & the Wheels
    The Virgin & the Wheels is a 1976 collection of two short science fiction novels by L. Sprague de Camp, published in paperback by Popular Library...

  • Samuel R. Delany
    Samuel R. Delany
    Samuel Ray Delany, Jr., also known as "Chip" is an American author, professor and literary critic. His work includes a number of novels, many in the science fiction genre, as well as memoir, criticism, and essays on sexuality and society.His science fiction novels include Babel-17, The Einstein...

     – Triton
    Triton (novel)
    Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia is a science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany. It was nominated for the 1976 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and was shortlisted for a retrospective James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 1995...

  • August Derleth
    August Derleth
    August William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first publisher of the writings of H. P...

     – Dwellers in Darkness
    Dwellers in Darkness
    Dwellers in Darkness is a collection of stories by author August Derleth. It was released in 1976 by Arkham House in an edition of 3,926 copies. It was the author's eighth collection of stories published by Arkham House. Two stories from Derleth's Judge Peck series are included in the collection...

  • Philip K. Dick
    Philip K. Dick
    Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...

     and Roger Zelazny
    Roger Zelazny
    Roger Joseph Zelazny was an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for his The Chronicles of Amber series...

     – Deus Irae
    Deus Irae
    Deus Irae is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny. It was published in 1976. Deus irae means God of wrath in Latin. The name is a play on Dies Irae, meaning Day of Wrath or Judgment Day...

  • Richard Ford
    Richard Ford
    Richard Ford is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter and its sequels, Independence Day and The Lay of the Land, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories.-Early...

     – A Piece of My Heart
    A Piece of My Heart
    Piece of My Heart is the 18th novel by crime-writer Peter Robinson, published in 2006 and is 16th in the multi award-winning Inspector Alan Banks series.-Plot summary:Piece of My Heart is the 16th Inspector Banks novel by Peter Robinson...

  • Brian Garfield
    Brian Garfield
    Brian Francis Wynne Garfield is an American novelist and screenwriter. He wrote his first published book at the age of eighteen and wrote several novels under such pen names as "Frank Wynne" and "'Brian Wynne" before gaining prominence when his book Hopscotch won the 1976 Edgar Award for Best Novel...

     – The Last Hard Men
  • Judith Guest
    Judith Guest
    Judith Guest is an American novelist and screenwriter. She was born in Detroit, Michigan and is the great-niece of Poet Laureate Edgar Guest .- Work :...

     – Ordinary People
    Ordinary People (novel)
    Ordinary People is Judith Guest's first novel. Published in 1976, it tells the story of a year in the life of the Jarretts, an affluent suburban family trying to cope with the aftermath of two traumatic events....

  • Alex Haley
    Alex Haley
    Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was an African-American writer. He is best known as the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and the coauthor of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.-Early life:...

     – Roots: The Saga of an American Family
    Roots: The Saga of an American Family
    Roots: The Saga of an American Family is a novel written by Alex Haley and first published in 1976. It tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent and sold into slavery in the United States, and follows his life and the lives of his descendants in the U.S....

  • Frank Herbert
    Frank Herbert
    Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. Although a short story author, he is best known for his novels, most notably Dune and its five sequels...

     – Children of Dune
    Children of Dune
    Children of Dune is a 1976 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, third in a series of six novels set in his Dune universe. Initially selling over 75,000 copies, it became the first hardcover best-seller ever in the science fiction field...

  • Ira Levin
    Ira Levin
    Ira Levin was an American author, dramatist and songwriter.-Professional life:Levin attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa...

     – The Boys from Brazil
    The Boys from Brazil (novel)
    The Boys from Brazil is a 1976 thriller novel by Ira Levin. It was subsequently made into a movie of the same name that was released in 1978.- Plot :...

  • Robert Ludlum
    Robert Ludlum
    Robert Ludlum was an American author of 23 thriller novels. The number of his books in print is estimated between 290–500 million copies. They have been published in 33 languages and 40 countries. Ludlum also published books under the pseudonyms Jonathan Ryder and Michael Shepherd.-Life and...

     - The Gemini Contenders
    The Gemini Contenders
    -Plot introduction:At the start of World War II a train departs from Salonika and heads for the Italian Alps, carrying a mysterious cargo. Over the next four decades, various members of the wealthy Italian Fontini-Cristi family, and a small brotherhood of priests with the name Xenope, struggle to...

  • Ruth Manning-Sanders
    Ruth Manning-Sanders
    Ruth Manning-Sanders was a prolific British poet and author who was perhaps best known for her series of children's books in which she collected and retold fairy tales from all over the world. All told, she published more than 90 books during her lifetime. The dust jacket for A Book of Giants...

     – A Book of Monsters
    A Book of Monsters
    A Book of Monsters is a 1976 anthology of 12 fairy tales from around the world that have been collected and retold by Ruth Manning-Sanders. It is one in a long series of such anthologies by Manning-Sanders. This book was first published in the United Kingdom in 1975, by Methuen & Co. Ltd.In the...

  • Ryū Murakami
    Ryu Murakami
    is a Japanese novelist and filmmaker. He is colloquially referred to as the "Maradona of Japanese literature".-Biography:Born as Ryūnosuke Murakami in Sasebo, Nagasaki on February 19, 1952...

     – Almost Transparent Blue
    Almost Transparent Blue
    is a novel by Japanese author Ryū Murakami, published in 1976. Murakami directed a film adaptation in 1979. -Plot:Narrated by the main character Ryū the novel focuses on his small group of young friends in the mid-seventies. Living in a Japanese town with an American air force base, their lives...

     (Kagirinaku tōmei ni chikai burū?)
  • R. K. Narayan
    R. K. Narayan
    R. K. Narayan , shortened from Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami Tamil: ) , Madras Presidency, British India. His father was a school headmaster, and Narayan did some of his studies at his father's school...

     – The Painter of Signs
    The Painter of Signs
    The Painter of Signs is a 1976 novel by R. K. Narayan.-Plot:This bittersweet novel is as fresh and charming today as it was when originally published...

  • Larry Niven
    Larry Niven
    Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...

     and Jerry Pournelle
    Jerry Pournelle
    Jerry Eugene Pournelle is an American science fiction writer, essayist and journalist who contributed for many years to the computer magazine Byte and has since 1998 been maintaining his own website/blog....

     -Inferno
    Inferno (novel)
    Inferno is a science fiction novel written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, published in 1976. It was nominated for the 1976 Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel.-Background:...

  • Robert Nye
    Robert Nye
    Robert Nye FRSL is an English poet who has also written novels and plays as well as stories for children. His bestselling novel Falstaff published in 1976 was described by Michael Ratcliffe as 'one of the most ambitious and seductive novels of the decade,' and went on to win both The Hawthornden...

     – Falstaff
  • Marge Piercy
    Marge Piercy
    Marge Piercy is an American poet, novelist, and social activist. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Gone to Soldiers, a sweeping historical novel set during World War II.-Biography:...

     – Woman on the Edge of Time
    Woman on the Edge of Time
    Woman on the Edge of Time is a novel by Marge Piercy. It is considered a classic of utopian "speculative" science fiction as well as a feminist classic.-Plot summary:...

  • Anthony Powell
    Anthony Powell
    Anthony Dymoke Powell CH, CBE was an English novelist best known for his twelve-volume work A Dance to the Music of Time, published between 1951 and 1975....

     – Infants of the Spring
  • Terry Pratchett
    Terry Pratchett
    Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...

     – The Dark Side of the Sun
    The Dark Side of the Sun
    The Dark Side of the Sun is a science fiction novel by Terry Pratchett, first published in 1976. It is similar to the work of Isaac Asimov. According to Don D'Ammassa, both this and Pratchett's 1981 sci-fi novel Strata are spoofing parts of Larry Niven's Ringworld...

  • Manuel Puig
    Manuel Puig
    Manuel Puig was an Argentine author...

     – El beso de la mujer araña
    Kiss of the Spider Woman (novel)
    Kiss of the Spider Woman is a novel by the Argentine writer Manuel Puig. It is considered his most successful....

    (Kiss of the Spider Woman)
  • Ishmael Reed
    Ishmael Reed
    Ishmael Scott Reed is an American poet, essayist, and novelist. A prominent African-American literary figure, Reed is known for his satirical works challenging American political culture, and highlighting political and cultural oppression.Reed has been described as one of the most controversial...

     – Flight To Canada
  • Anne Rice
    Anne Rice
    Anne Rice is a best-selling Southern American author of metaphysical gothic fiction, Christian literature and erotica from New Orleans, Louisiana. Her books have sold nearly 100 million copies, making her one of the most widely read authors in modern history...

     – Interview with the Vampire
    Interview with the Vampire
    Interview with the Vampire is a vampire novel by Anne Rice written in 1973 and published in 1976. It was the first novel to feature the enigmatic vampire Lestat, and was followed by several sequels, collectively known as The Vampire Chronicles...

  • Hubert Selby Jr. – The Demon
  • Tom Sharpe
    Tom Sharpe
    Tom Sharpe is an English satirical author, best known for his Wilt series of novels.Sharpe was born in London and moved to South Africa in 1951, where he worked as a social worker and a teacher, before being deported for sedition in 1961...

     - Wilt
    Wilt (novel)
    Wilt is a comedic novel by the author Tom Sharpe, first published by Secker and Warburg in 1976. Later editions were published by Pan Books, and Overlook TP.-Plot introduction:The novel's title refers to its main character, Henry Wilt...

  • Sidney Sheldon
    Sidney Sheldon
    Sidney Sheldon was an Academy Award-winning American writer. His TV works spanned a 20-year period during which he created The Patty Duke Show , I Dream of Jeannie and Hart to Hart , but he became most famous after he turned 50 and began writing best-selling novels such as Master of the Game ,...

     – A Stranger in the Mirror
    A Stranger in the Mirror
    A Stranger in the Mirror is a 1976 novel written by Sidney Sheldon. The novel is one of the earliest Sheldon's works, but contains the typical Sheldon fast-paced narration and several narrative techniques with the exception of a twist ending...

  • Muriel Spark
    Muriel Spark
    Dame Muriel Spark, DBE was an award-winning Scottish novelist. In 2008 The Times newspaper named Spark in its list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945".-Early life:...

     – The Takeover
    The Takeover (novel)
    The Takeover is a novel by the Scottish author Muriel Spark. It was first published in 1976.It is set in Nemi, Italy between 1973 and 1975. The author had moved to Italy as a permanent resident in the late 1960s.-Plot summary:...

  • Jacqueline Susann
    Jacqueline Susann
    Jacqueline Susann was an American author known for her best-selling novels. Her most notable work was Valley of the Dolls, a book that broke sales records and spawned an Oscar-nominated 1967 film and a short-lived TV series.-Early years:Jacqueline Susann was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to...

     – Dolores
    Dolores
    -Places:*Argentina**Dolores, Buenos Aires*Belize**Rancho Dolores*Colombia** Dolores, Tolima*Guatemala**Dolores, El Petén*Mexico** Dolores Hidalgo, a town in Guanajuato** Dolores, Baja California Sur** Dolores, Chihuahua*Philippines** Dolores, Abra...

  • Paul Theroux
    Paul Theroux
    Paul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work of travel writing is perhaps The Great Railway Bazaar . He has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his...

     - The Family Arsenal
    The Family Arsenal
    The Family Arsenal is a novel by Paul Theroux originally published in 1976. It is a political thriller following the acts of a terrorist cell in London.-Synopsis:...

  • Leon Uris
    Leon Uris
    Leon Marcus Uris was an American novelist, known for his historical fiction and the deep research that went into his novels. His two bestselling books were Exodus, published in 1958, and Trinity, in 1976.-Life:...

     – Trinity (novel)
    Trinity (novel)
    Trinity is a novel by American author Leon Uris, published in 1976 by Doubleday.-Introduction:The book tells the story of the intertwining lives of the following families: the Larkins and O'Neills, Catholic hill farmers from the fictional town of Ballyutogue in County Donegal; the Macleods,...

  • Melvin Van Peebles
    Melvin Van Peebles
    Melvin "Block" Van Peebles is an American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, novelist and composer.He is most famous for creating the acclaimed film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which heralded a new era of African American focused films...

     – Just An Old Sweet Song
  • Gore Vidal
    Gore Vidal
    Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...

     – 1876
    1876 (novel)
    Gore Vidal's 1876 is the third historical novel in his Narratives of Empire series. It was published in 1976 and details the events of a year described by Vidal himself as "probably the low point in our republic's history."...

  • Kurt Vonnegut
    Kurt Vonnegut
    Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...

     – Slapstick
    Slapstick
    Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...

  • Roger Zelazny
    Roger Zelazny
    Roger Joseph Zelazny was an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for his The Chronicles of Amber series...

    • Doorways in the Sand
      Doorways in the Sand
      Doorways in the Sand is a Nebula- and Hugo-nominated science fiction novel with mystery and comic elements by Roger Zelazny. It was originally published in serial form in the magazine Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact; the hardcover edition was first published in 1976 and the paperback in...

    • The Hand of Oberon
      The Hand of Oberon
      The Hand of Oberon is the fourth book in The Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny published in book form by Doubleday in 1976. It was first published in serial format in Galaxy Science Fiction.-Plot introduction:...

    • My Name is Legion
      My Name is Legion (Zelazny stories)
      My Name Is Legion is an anthology of three stories by American writer Roger Zelazny, compiled in 1976. The stories feature a common protagonist who is never named.-Plot summary:...


New drama

  • Athol Fugard
    Athol Fugard
    Athol Fugard is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director who writes in English, best known for his political plays opposing the South African system of apartheid and for the 2005 Academy-Award winning film of his novel Tsotsi, directed by Gavin Hood...

     – Sizwe Banzi is Dead
    Sizwe Banzi is Dead
    Sizwe Banzi Is Dead is a play by Athol Fugard, written collaboratively with two South African actors, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona, both of whom appeared in the original production. Its world première occurred on October 8, 1972 at the Space Theatre, Cape Town, South Africa...

  • Dorothy Hewett
    Dorothy Hewett
    Dorothy Coade Hewett was an Australian feminist poet, novelist, librettist and playwright. She was also a member of the Communist Party of Australia, though she clashed on many occasions with the party's leadership.-Early life:Hewett was born in Perth and was brought up on a sheep and wheat farm...

     – This Old Man Came Rolling Home

Non-fiction

  • Richard Dawkins
    Richard Dawkins
    Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...

     – The Selfish Gene
    The Selfish Gene
    The Selfish Gene is a book on evolution by Richard Dawkins, published in 1976. It builds upon the principal theory of George C. Williams's first book Adaptation and Natural Selection. Dawkins coined the term "selfish gene" as a way of expressing the gene-centred view of evolution as opposed to the...

  • L. Sprague deCamp – Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers
    Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers
    Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: the Makers of Heroic Fantasy is a 1976 work of collective biography on the formative authors of the heroic fantasy genre by L. Sprague de Camp, published by Arkham House in an edition of 5,431 copies...

  • Michel Foucault
    Michel Foucault
    Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...

     – Histoire de la sexualité, 1: la volonte de savoir
    The History of Sexuality
    The History of Sexuality is a three-volume series of books by French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault written between 1976 and 1984...

  • Christopher Isherwood
    Christopher Isherwood
    Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...

     - Christopher and His Kind
    Christopher and His Kind
    Christopher and His Kind is a 1976 memoir by the British author Christopher Isherwood, covering the period 1929 to 1939 and principally covering his years in Berlin. Isherwood's real-life experiences during this period formed the basis of his novel Goodbye to Berlin.It was adapted for television in...

  • Ryszard Kapuściński
    Ryszard Kapuscinski
    Ryszard Kapuściński was a Polish journalist and writer whose dispatches in book form brought him a global reputation. Also a photographer and poet, he was born in Pińsknow in Belarusin the Kresy Wschodnie or eastern borderlands of the second Polish Republic, into poverty: he would say later that...

     – Another Day of Life
    Another Day of Life
    Another Day of Life is a non-fiction record of three months of the Angolan Civil War by the Polish writer Ryszard Kapuściński.It is made up of a notable description of the degradation of the Angolan capital, Luanda, an analysis of the various weaknesses of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of...

  • Arthur Koestler
    Arthur Koestler
    Arthur Koestler CBE was a Hungarian author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria...

     – The Thirteenth Tribe
    The Thirteenth Tribe
    The Thirteenth Tribe is a book by Arthur Koestler, which advances the thesis that Ashkenazi Jews are not descended from the historical Israelites of antiquity, but from Khazars, a Turkic people...

  • H. P. Lovecraft
    H. P. Lovecraft
    Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....

    • Selected Letters IV (1932–1934)
    • Selected Letters V (1934–1937)
    • To Quebec and the Stars
      To Quebec and the Stars
      To Quebec and the Stars is a collection of seventeen essays by H. P. Lovecraft, assembled and edited by L. Sprague de Camp, who came across them in the course of his research for his biography of Lovecraft. The collection was first published in hardcover by Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc...

  • Peter C. Newman
    Peter C. Newman
    Peter Charles Newman, CC, CD is a Canadian journalist and writer.Born in Vienna, Austria, Newman emigrated from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia to Canada in 1940 as a Jewish refugee. His father, Oscar, was a self-made wealthy factory owner. Newman was educated at Upper Canada College, where he was...

     – The Canadian Establishment
    The Canadian Establishment
    The Canadian Establishment is the first reference book published in Canada to catalogue the richest families and individuals in the country. It was published in 1975 by economic journalist, Peter C. Newman...

  • Jean-François Revel
    Jean-François Revel
    Jean-François Revel was a French politician, journalist, author, prolific philosopher and member of the Académie française from June 1998...

     – The Totalitarian Temptation
  • Arnold J. Toynbee
    Arnold J. Toynbee
    Arnold Joseph Toynbee CH was a British historian whose twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History, 1934–1961, was a synthesis of world history, a metahistory based on universal rhythms of rise, flowering and decline, which examined history from a global...

     – Mankind and Mother Earth
  • Andrew Vachss
    Andrew Vachss
    Andrew Henry Vachss is an American crime fiction author, child protection consultant, and attorney exclusively representing children and youths...

     – The Life-Style Violent Juvenile
  • Simon Wiesenthal
    Simon Wiesenthal
    Simon Wiesenthal KBE was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter....

     – The Sunflower
    The Sunflower
    The Sunflower was an electoral alliance of two Italian centre-left parties for the 2001 Italian general election, namely:* Federation of the Greens * Italian Democratic Socialists...

  • Bob Woodward
    Bob Woodward
    Robert Upshur Woodward is an American investigative journalist and non-fiction author. He has worked for The Washington Post since 1971 as a reporter, and is currently an associate editor of the Post....

     & Carl Bernstein
    Carl Bernstein
    Carl Bernstein is an American investigative journalist who, at The Washington Post, teamed up with Bob Woodward; the two did the majority of the most important news reporting on the Watergate scandal. These scandals led to numerous government investigations, the indictment of a vast number of...

     – The Final Days
    The Final Days
    The Final Days is a 1976 non-fiction book written by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. A follow up to their book All the President's Men, The Final Days concerns itself with the final months of the Richard Nixon presidency....


Births

  • February 3 – Isla Fisher
    Isla Fisher
    Isla Lang Fisher is an actress and author. She began acting on Australian television, on the short-lived soap opera Paradise Beach before playing Shannon Reed on the soap opera Home and Away...

    , actress and author
  • April 1 – David Chapman
    David Chapman (journalist)
    David Chapman is an entertainment writer/producer covering various pop culture interests, particularly the video game and comic book industries. David's freelance work has appeared in a variety of outlets, including GameSpy and the US version of Play Magazine...

    , music journalist
  • August 29 – T. James Belich (Colorado Tolston, pseudonym), playwright, novelist and actor

Deaths

  • January 12 – Agatha Christie
    Agatha Christie
    Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...

    , best-selling crime writer
  • January 25 – Victor Ehrenberg
    Victor Ehrenberg (historian)
    Victor Ehrenberg was a German historian. He was the younger brother of Hans Ehrenberg and the nephew of the jurist Victor Ehrenberg.He was married to Eva Dorothea Ehrenberg, née Sommer ....

    , historian
  • February 12 – John Lewis
    John Lewis (philosopher)
    John Lewis was a British Unitarian minister and Marxist philosopher and author of many works on philosophy, anthropology, and religion....

    , philosopher
  • March 24 – E. H. Shepard
    E. H. Shepard
    Ernest Howard Shepard was an English artist and book illustrator. He was known especially for his human-like animals in illustrations for The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame and Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne....

    , book illustrator
  • March 31 – Edward Streeter
    Edward Streeter
    Edward Streeter was an American novelist and journalist, best known for the 1949 novel Father of the Bride and his Dere Mable series....

    , humorist
  • April 28 – Richard Hughes
    Richard Hughes (writer)
    Richard Arthur Warren Hughes OBE was a British writer of poems, short stories, novels and plays.He was born in Weybridge, Surrey. His father was a civil servant Arthur Hughes, and his mother Louisa Grace Warren who had been brought up in Jamaica...

    , novelist
  • June 18 – Malcolm Johnson, investigative journalist
  • September 10 – Dalton Trumbo
    Dalton Trumbo
    James Dalton Trumbo was an American screenwriter and novelist, and one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of film professionals who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry...

    , novelist and screenwriter, one of the Hollywood Ten
  • November 6 – Patrick Dennis
    Patrick Dennis
    Patrick Dennis was an American author. His novel Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade was one of the bestselling American books of the 20th century. In chronological vignettes "Patrick" recalls his adventures growing up under the wing of his madcap aunt, Mame Dennis...

    , novelist
  • December 21 – Munro Leaf
    Munro Leaf
    Wilbur Monroe Leaf , was an American author of children's literature who wrote and illustrated nearly 40 books during his 40-year career. He is best known for The Story of Ferdinand , a children's classic which he wrote on a yellow legal-length pad in less than an hour...

    , children's author
  • date unknown
    • Martín Luis Guzmán
      Martín Luis Guzmán
      Martín Luis Guzmán Franco was a Mexican novelist and journalist.-Life:Guzmán was born in Chihuahua, Chihuahua. Along with Mariano Azuela, he is considered a pioneer of the revolutionary novel, a genre inspired by the experiences of the Mexican Revolution of 1910...

      , novelist and journalist
    • Robert Speaight
      Robert Speaight
      Robert Speaight was a British actor and writer, and the brother of George Speaight the puppeteer.He was an early performer in radio plays. He came to prominence as Becket in the first production of T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. He went on to Shakespearean roles, and to direct.He also...

      , actor, biographer and essayist
    • Yashpal
      Yashpal
      Not to be confused with Yash Pal Yashpal was a Hindi author renowned for झूटा सच Jhutha Sach , which is regarded as one of the best Hindi novels ever written...

      , Hindi novelist

Canada

  • See 1976 Governor General's Awards
    1976 Governor General's Awards
    Each winner of the 1976 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit was selected by a panel of judges administered by the Canada Council for the Arts.-English Language:*Fiction: Marian Engel, Bear.*Poetry or Drama: Joe Rosenblatt, Top Soil....

     for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

  • Prix Goncourt
    Prix Goncourt
    The Prix Goncourt is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year"...

    : Patrick Grainville
    Patrick Grainville
    Patrick Grainville Patrick Grainville Patrick Grainville (born 1 June 1947 Villers-sur-Mer (Calvados) is a French novelist.He spent his childhood in Villerville, a small town east of Deauville....

    , Les Flamboyants
  • Prix Médicis
    Prix Médicis
    The Prix Médicis is a French literary award given each year in November. It was founded in 1958 by Gala Barbisan and Jean-Pierre Giraudoux. It is awarded to an author whose "fame does not yet match his talent."...

     French: Marc Cholodenko, Les États du désert
  • Prix Médicis
    Prix Médicis
    The Prix Médicis is a French literary award given each year in November. It was founded in 1958 by Gala Barbisan and Jean-Pierre Giraudoux. It is awarded to an author whose "fame does not yet match his talent."...

     International: Doris Lessing
    Doris Lessing
    Doris May Lessing CH is a British writer. Her novels include The Grass is Singing, The Golden Notebook, and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos....

    , The Gold CoronetUnited Kingdom
    United Kingdom
    The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...


United Kingdom

  • Booker Prize: David Storey
    David Storey
    David Rhames Storey is an English playwright, screenwriter, award-winning novelist and a former professional rugby league player....

    , Saville
    Saville (novel)
    Saville is a Booker Prize-winning novel by English author David Storey.-Plot:The novel centers around Colin, a young boy growing up in the fictional Yorkshire mining village of Saxton during WWII and the postwar years.-References:**...

  • Carnegie Medal
    Carnegie Medal
    The Carnegie Medal is a literary award established in 1936 in honour of Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and given annually to an outstanding book for children and young adults. It is awarded by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals...

     for children's literature
    Children's literature
    Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

    : Jan Mark
    Jan Mark
    Jan Mark was a British author, best known as a writer for children. She was christened Janet Marjorie Brisland in Welwyn Garden City in 1943 and was raised and educated in Kent. She was a secondary school teacher between 1965 and 1971, and became a full-time writer in 1974. She wrote over fifty...

    , Thunder and Lightnings
    Thunder and Lightnings
    Thunder and Lightnings is a children's book, the first novel written by Jan Mark. It won the Penguin Guardian Award for a first children’s book and the Carnegie Medal for 1976...

  • Cholmondeley Award
    Cholmondeley Award
    The Cholmondeley Award is an annual award for poetry given by the Society of Authors in the United Kingdom. Awards honour distinguished poets, from a fund endowed by the late Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1966...

    : Peter Porter
    Peter Porter (poet)
    Peter Neville Frederick Porter, OAM was a British-based Australian poet.-Life:Porter was born in Brisbane, Australia, in 1929. His mother, Marion, died of a burst gall-bladder in 1938. He attended the Church of England Grammar School and left school at 18, and went to work as a trainee journalist...

    , Fleur Adcock
    Fleur Adcock
    Kareen Fleur Adcock , CNZM, OBE is a poet and an editor of English and Northern Irish ancestry, who has lived much of her life in England.-Life and career:...

  • Eric Gregory Award
    Eric Gregory Award
    The Eric Gregory Award is given by the Society of Authors to British poets under 30 on submission. The awards are up to a sum value of £24000 annually....

    : Stewart Brown
    Stewart Brown
    Dr Stewart Brown is an English poet, university lecturer and scholar of African and Caribbean Literature.-Life and Study:...

    , Valerie Gillies, Paul Groves
    Paul Groves
    Paul Groves is an English former footballer who notably captained and managed Grimsby Town. He was naturally a central midfield player, but later in his career was used as a central defender...

    , Paul Hyland
    Paul Hyland
    Paul Hyland, is an Irish professional boxer who is the European Union super bantamweight title holder.-Debut:...

    , Nigel Jenkins
    Nigel Jenkins
    Nigel Jenkins is one of Wales's foremost poets. Jenkins is also an editor, journalist, broadcaster and writer of creative non-fiction...

    , Andrew Motion
    Andrew Motion
    Sir Andrew Motion, FRSL is an English poet, novelist and biographer, who presided as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009.- Life and career :...

    , Tom Paulin
    Tom Paulin
    Thomas Neilson Paulin is a Northern Irish poet and critic of film, music and literature. He lives in England, where he is the GM Young Lecturer in English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford.- Life and work :...

    , William Peskett
    William Peskett
    William Peskett is a poet from Northern Ireland.Peskett was educated in Belfast and at Cambridge University, where he read natural sciences....

  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize
    James Tait Black Memorial Prize
    Founded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards...

     for fiction: John Banville
    John Banville
    John Banville is an Irish novelist and screenwriter.Banville's breakthrough novel The Book of Evidence was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and won the Guinness Peat Aviation award. His eighteenth novel, The Sea, won the Man Booker Prize in 2005. He was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize in 2011...

    , Doctor Copernicus
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize
    James Tait Black Memorial Prize
    Founded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards...

     for biography: Ronald Hingley, A New Life of Chekhov
    Anton Chekhov
    Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...


United States

  • Frost Medal
    Frost Medal
    The Robert Frost Medal is an award of the Poetry Society of America for "distinguished lifetime service to American poetry." Medalists receive a prize purse of $2,500....

    : A.M. Sullivan
  • Nebula Award
    Nebula Award
    The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...

    : Frederik Pohl
    Frederik Pohl
    Frederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...

    , Man Plus
    Man Plus
    Man Plus is a 1976 science fiction novel by Frederik Pohl. It won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1976, was nominated for the Hugo and Campbell Awards, and placed third in the annual Locus Poll in 1977. Pohl teamed up with Thomas T. Thomas to write a sequel, Mars Plus, published in 1994.-Plot...

  • Newbery Medal
    Newbery Medal
    The John Newbery Medal is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association . The award is given to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The award has been given since 1922. ...

     for children's literature
    Children's literature
    Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

    : Susan Cooper
    Susan Cooper
    Susan Mary Cooper is an English author best known for The Dark Is Rising, an award-winning five-volume saga set in and around England and Wales. The books incorporate traditional British mythology, such as Arthurian and other Welsh elements with original material ; these books were adapted into a...

    , The Grey King
    The Grey King
    The Grey King is a children's fantasy novel by British author Susan Cooper, which was awarded the Newbery Medal for excellence in U.S. children's literature in 1976. It is the fourth of five stories in her young adult Arthurian fantasy cycle, The Dark Is Rising...

  • Pulitzer Prize for Drama
    Pulitzer Prize for Drama
    The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than the calendar year...

    : Michael Bennett
    Michael Bennett
    Michael Bennett was an American musical theater director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. He won seven Tony Awards for his choreography and direction of Broadway shows and was nominated for an additional eleven....

     for concept, choreography, and direction; James Kirkwood, Jr.
    James Kirkwood, Jr.
    James Kirkwood, Jr. was an American playwright, author and actor. In 1976 he received the Tony Award, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the Broadway hit A Chorus Line.-Biography:Kirkwood was born in Los Angeles, California. His father...

     for book, Marvin Hamlisch
    Marvin Hamlisch
    Marvin Frederick Hamlisch is an American composer. He is one of only thirteen people to have been awarded Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, and a Tony . He is also one of only two people to EGOT and also win a Pulitzer Prize...

     for lyrics, Nicholas Dante
    Nicholas Dante
    Nicholas Dante was an American dancer and writer, best-known for having co-written the book of the musical A Chorus Line.-Biography:...

     for music, A Chorus Line
    A Chorus Line
    A Chorus Line is a 1975 musical about Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line. The book was authored by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics were written by Edward Kleban, and music was composed by Marvin Hamlisch....

  • Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
    Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
    The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. It originated as the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which was awarded between 1918 and 1947.-1910s:...

    : Saul Bellow
    Saul Bellow
    Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...

     – Humboldt's Gift
    Humboldt's Gift
    Humboldt's Gift is a 1975 novel by Saul Bellow, which won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and contributed to Bellow's winning the Nobel Prize in Literature the same year....

  • Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
    Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
    The Pulitzer Prize in Poetry has been presented since 1922 for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author. However, special citations for poetry were presented in 1918 and 1919.-Winners:...

    : John Ashbery
    John Ashbery
    John Lawrence Ashbery is an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But Ashbery's work still proves controversial...

    : Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

Elsewhere

  • Premio Nadal
    Premio Nadal
    Premio Nadal is a Spanish literary prize awarded annually by the publishing house Ediciones Destino, part of Planeta. It has been awarded every year on January 6 since 1944...

    : Raúl Guerra Garrido, Lectura insólita de El Capital
  • Viareggio Prize
    Viareggio Prize
    The Viareggio Literary Prize is a prestigious Italian literary award, whose first edition was in 1930, and is named after the Tuscan city of Viareggio...

    : Mario Tobino
    Mario Tobino
    Mario Tobino was an Italian poet, writer and psychiatrist.Tobino was born in Viareggio, Tuscany. A prolific writer, he debuted as a poet but later composed mostly novels...

    , La bella degli specchi
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