1970 in literature

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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1970.

Events

January 16 – The Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus opens with a performance of Georg Büchner's Dantons Tod.
March – Magdalena Mouján's story "Gu ta Gutarrak" ("We and Ours") in Basque is suppressed by the authorities in Francoist Spain.
June 10 – The English novelist Anthony Burgess delivers an inflammatory lecture, "Obscenity and the Arts", at the University of Malta; its reception leads to him leaving Malta. He has begun a novel that will become Earthly Powers (1980).
June 17 – The première of David Storey's play Home at the Royal Court Theatre, London, is directed by Lindsay Anderson and stars Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson.
July 7 – The English publisher Sir Allen Lane dies age 67 having suffered cancer. On August 21 his paperback imprint Penguin Books is acquired by Pearson.
August 27 – England's Royal Shakespeare Company introduces a revolutionary production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Peter Brook, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.
November 20 – The playwright Fadil Paçrami becomes Chairman of the Parliament of Albania.
November 25 – In Tokyo, the Japanese author and Tatenokai militia leader Yukio Mishima (三島由紀夫, 45) and others take over the headquarters of the Japan Self-Defense Forces in an attempted coup d'état. Mishima commits seppuku (public ritual suicide) when he fails to sway the public to his right-wing politics, which include restoring the powers of the Emperor.
December 5 – Dario Fo premières his play Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Morte accidentale di un anarchico) at Varese in Italy.
unknown dates
- Len Deighton's Bomber, set in 1943, becomes the first published novel to have been written on a word processor, an IBM MT/ST.
- The novel Deliverance by the American poet James Dickey is published; it will go on to be named among the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by an editorial board of the American Modern Library.
- An unexpurgated edition of John Cleland's Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 1748–1749) appears in the U.K. without legal challenge.
- Bohumil Hrabal's books Domácí úkoly (Home Work) and Poupata (Buds) are suppressed by the communist authorities in Czechoslovakia.

New books

Births

January 25 – Stephen Chbosky, American novelist and screenwriter
February 28 – Daniel Handler, American novelist
March 6 – Simona Vinci, Italian fiction writer
March 12 – Dave Eggers, American writer, editor and publisher
March 20 – Michele Jaffe, American author
March 26 – Martin McDonagh, British-born Irish playwright
May 20 – Dorthe Nors, Danish fiction writer
May 26 – Alex Garland, English novelist
June 6 – Sarah Dessen, American novelist
July 22 – Doug Johnstone, Scottish crime fiction writer
August 27 - Ann Aguirre, American speculative fiction writer
September 10 – Phaswane Mpe, South African novelist (died 2004)
September 16 – Nick Sagan, American novelist and screenwriter
October 27 – Jonathan Stroud, English fantasy writer
November 7 – Chris Adrian, American novelist
November 24 – Marlon James, Jamaican novelist
November 27 – Han Kang, South Korean novelist
December 21 – Mohamedou Ould Salahi, Mauritanian author and former Guantánamo detainee
unknown dates
- Raja'a Alem, Saudi Arabian writer
- Roberta Dapunt, Italian poet
- Nathan Englander, American novelist and short story writer
- Neel Mukherjee, Indian novelist
- Faruk Šehić, Bosnian poet and fiction writer

Deaths

January 10 – Charles Olson, American modernist poet (liver cancer, born 1910)
January 29 – B. H. Liddell Hart, English military historian (born 1895)
February 2 – Bertrand Russell, English philosopher (born 1872)
February 4 – Louise Bogan, American poet (born 1897)
February 20 – Sophie Treadwell, American dramatist and journalist (born 1885)
February 21 – Johannes Semper, Estonian writer, translator and politician (born 1892)
March 11 – Erle Stanley Gardner, American writer (born 1889)
March 15 – Arthur Adamov, Russian-French playwright (born 1908)
March 21 – Marlen Haushofer, Austrian novelist (born 1920)
March 29 – Vera Brittain, English novelist, memoirist and poet (born 1893)
April 11 – John O'Hara, American novelist (cardiovascular disease, born 1905)
May 7 – Jack Jones, Welsh novelist (born 1884)
May 12 – Nelly Sachs, Jewish German poet and dramatist (born 1891)
June 2 – Giuseppe Ungaretti, Italian modernist poet and writer (born 1888)
June 3 – Ruth Sawyer, American children's writer and novelist (born 1880)
June 7 – E. M. Forster, English novelist (born 1879)
June 16 – Elsa Triolet, French novelist (born 1896)
July 7 – Allen Lane, English publisher (born 1902)
July 15 – Eric Berne, Canadian-born psychiatrist and author (heart attack, born 1910)
September 1 – François Mauriac, French novelist (born 1885)
September 25 – Erich Maria Remarque, German novelist (All Quiet On The Western Front) (born 1898)
September 28 – John Dos Passos, American novelist (born 1896)
October 18 – Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Irish language writer (born 1906)
November 23 – Alf Prøysen, Norwegian author, musician and children's writer (born 1914)
November 25 – Yukio Mishima (三島由紀夫), Japanese author (seppuku, born 1925)
unknown date – Racey Helps, English children's author and illustrator (born 1913)

Awards

Nobel Prize for Literature: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Canada

See 1970 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

Prix Goncourt: Michel Tournier, Le Roi des Aulnes
Prix Médicis French: Camille Bourniquel, Sélinonte ou la Chambre impériale
Prix Médicis International: Luigi Malerba, Saut de la mort

United Kingdom

Booker Prize: Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member
Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen, The God Beneath the Sea
Cholmondeley Award: Kathleen Raine, Douglas Livingstone, Edward Brathwaite
Eric Gregory Award: Helen Frye, Paul Mills, John Mole, Brian Morse, Alan Perry, Richard Tibbitts
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Lily Powell, The Bird of Paradise
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston
Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Roy Fuller

United States

Hugo Award: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
Nebula Award: Larry Niven, Ringworld
Newbery Medal for children's literature: William H. Armstrong, Sounder
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Charles Gordone, No Place To Be Somebody
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Jean Stafford, Collected Stories
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Howard, Untitled Subjects

Elsewhere

Miles Franklin Award: Dal Stivens, A Horse of Air
Alfaguara Prize: Carlos Droguett, Todas esas muertes
Premio Nadal: Jesús Fernández Santos, Libro de las memorias de las cosas
Viareggio Prize: Nello Saito, Dentro e fuori

1970 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards

Canada

France

United Kingdom

United States

Elsewhere