1986 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1986.

Events

• July 21 – Michael Grade, Controller of BBC1, axes plans to televise Ian Curteis's The Falklands Play.
• September 26 – Bloomsbury Publishing is set up in London by Nigel Newton.

New books

Fiction

• Kingsley Amis – The Old Devils
• V. C. Andrews – Garden of Shadows
• Piers Anthony – Ghost
• Jeffrey Archer – A Matter of Honour
• James Axler – Pilgrimage to Hell and Red Holocaust
• Iain Banks – The Bridge
• Thomas Bernhard – Extinction (Auslöschung)
• Azouz Begag – Le Gone du Chaâba
• Anita Brookner – A Misalliance
• Orson Scott Card – Speaker for the Dead
• Ana Castillo – Mixquiahuala Letters
• Tom Clancy – Red Storm Rising
• Arthur C. Clarke – The Songs of Distant Earth
• James Clavell – Whirlwind
• Jackie Collins – Hollywood Husbands
• Pat Conroy – The Prince of Tides
• Hugh Cook – The Wizards and the Warriors
• Bernard Cornwell – Sharpe's Regiment
• Bernard & Judy Cornwell (as Susannah Kells) – Coat of Arms (also as The Aristocrats)
• Fernando Del Paso – Noticias del Imperio
• Marguerite Duras – Blue Eyes, Black Hair
• James Ellroy – Silent Terror
• Shusaku Endo (遠藤 周作) – Scandal (スキャンダル)
• Nuruddin Farah – Maps (first part of Blood in the Sun trilogy)
• Richard Ford – The Sportswriter
• John Gardner – Nobody Lives For Ever
• Jacques Godbout – Une Histoire américaine
• Peter Handke – Repetition
• Ernest Hemingway - The Garden of Eden
• Carl Hiaasen – Tourist Season
• Kazuo Ishiguro – An Artist of the Floating World
• Brian Jacques – Redwall
• Stephen King – It
• Ivan Klíma – Láska a smetí (Love and Garbage, banned until 1989)
• Judith Krantz – I'll Take Manhattan
• Louis L'Amour – Last of the Breed
• Joe R. Lansdale – Dead in the West
• John le Carré – A Perfect Spy
• David Leavitt – The Lost Language of Cranes
• Tanith Lee – Dreams of Dark and Light: The Great Short Fiction of Tanith Lee
• Gordon Lish – Dear Mr. Capote
• H. P. Lovecraft – Dagon and Other Macabre Tales corrected edition
• Robert Ludlum – The Bourne Supremacy
• Amin Maalouf – Leo Africanus
• Javier Marías – El hombre sentimental (The Man of Feeling, 2003)
• Allan Massie – Augustus (first in the Roman series)
• Frank Miller – Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (graphic novel)
• Robert Munsch – Love You Forever
• Patrick O'Brian – The Reverse of the Medal
• Ellis Peters
  • The Raven in the Foregate
  • The Rose Rent
• Terry Pratchett – The Light Fantastic
• Reynolds Price – Kate Vaiden
• James Purdy – In the Hollow of His Hand
• Jean Raspail – Who Will Remember the People...
• Mercè Rodoreda (died 1983) – La mort i la primavera (Death in Spring)
• José Saramago – The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis)
• Ken Saro-Wiwa – Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English
• Idries Shah – Kara Kush
• Danielle Steel – Wanderlust
• Peter Taylor – A Summons to Memphis
• James Tiptree, Jr. – Tales of the Quintana Roo
• Mario Vargas Llosa – ¿Quién mató a Palomino Molero?
• Vladimir Voinovich – Moscow 2042
• Roger Zelazny – Blood of Amber

Children and young people

• Janet and Allan Ahlberg – The Jolly Postman
• Chris Van Allsburg - The Stranger
• Tony Bradman – Dilly the Dinosaur (first in the eponymous series of 22 books)
• Steven Brust (with Alan Lee) - Brokedown Palace
• Robert J. Burch – Queenie Peavy
• Joy Cowley
  • (with Jan van der Voo) – Turnips For Dinner
  • (with Martin Bailey) – The King's Pudding
• Crescent Dragonwagon – Half a Moon and One Whole Star
• Jill Eggleton (with Kelvin Hawley) – Cat and Mouse
• Willi Glasauer
  • Exposición Kafka & CIA.: Hitos y Mitos de la Cultura Dibujos (Expedition Kafka & CIA: The Milestones and the Stories of Culture in Pictures)
  • Kafka Gesamtwerk (The Complete Works of Franz Kafka)
• Diana Wynne Jones – Howl's Moving Castle
• Michael de Larrabeiti
  • The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis
  • The Provençal Tales
• Arnold Lobel - The Random House Book of Mother Goose (in verse)
• Ann M. Martin
  • Kristy's Great Idea
  • Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls
  • The Truth about Stacey (first three in The Baby-Sitters Club series of over 200 books, 35 written by Martin)
• Patricia McKissack – Flossie & the Fox
• Robert Munsch – Love You Forever
• Jenny Nimmo – The Snow Spider (first in The Magician Trilogy)
• Bill Peet – Zella, Zack, and Zodiac
• Alison Prince – The Type One Super Robot
• Gillian Rubinstein – Space Demons
• Claude Ponti – Adele's Album

Drama

• Caryl Churchill and David Lan – A Mouthful of Birds
• Nick Darke – The Dead Monkey
• Tomson Highway – The Rez Sisters
• Willy Russell – Shirley Valentine

Poetry

• Kama Sywor Kamanda – Chants de brumes

Non-fiction

• Martin Amis – The Moronic Inferno: And Other Visits to America
• Bernard Bailyn – Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution
• Frank Barlow – Thomas Becket
• Marjorie Chibnall – Anglo-Norman England 1066–1166
• Richard Dawkins – The Blind Watchmaker
• Karlheinz Deschner – Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums (Criminal History of Christianity)
• Adrian Edmondson et al. – How to be a Complete Bastard
• Sita Ram Goel – History of Hindu–Christian Encounters, AD 304 to 1996
• Temple Grandin (with Margaret Scariano) – Emergence: Labeled Autistic
• Patience Gray – Honey from a Weed (cookery)
• Robert Irwin – The Middle East in the Middle Ages: The Early Mamlúk Sultanate 1250–1382
• Kumari Jayawardena – Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World
• Mark Mathabane – Kaffir Boy
• Farley Mowat – My Discovery of America
• Harvey Pekar – American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar (graphic autobiography)
• Marc Reisner – Cadillac Desert
• Richard Rhodes – The Making of the Atomic Bomb
• Jonathan Riley-Smith – The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading
• Art Spiegelman – Maus: A Survivor's Tale (I: My Father Bleeds History) (graphic biography/autobiography)
• Mary Wilson – Dreamgirl: My Life As a Supreme

Births

• July 3 – Chris Bush, English playwright, artistic director and comedian
• Unknown date
  • Caroline Bird, English poet and dramatist
  • Chigozie Obioma, Nigerian novelist

Deaths

• January 1 – Lord David Cecil, English critic and biographer (born 1902)
• January 4 – Christopher Isherwood, English-born novelist (born 1904)
• January 7 – Juan Rulfo, Mexican writer, screenwriter and photographer (born 1917)
• January 24 – L. Ron Hubbard, American science fiction writer, founder of Scientology (born 1911)
• February 4 – Phyllis Shand Allfrey, Dominican writer (born 1908)
• February 9 – Dora Oake Russell, Newfoundland writer, diarist and journalist (born 1912)
• February 11 – Frank Herbert, American science fiction novelist (born 1920)
• February 28 – Edith Ditmas, English archivist, historian and writer (born 1896)
• March 4
  • Ding Ling, Chinese fiction writer (born 1904)
  • Elizabeth Smart, Canadian poet and novelist (born 1913)
• March 15 – Pandelis Prevelakis, Greek novelist, poet, dramatist and essayist (born 1909)
• March 18 – Bernard Malamud, American novelist (born 1914)
• April 12 – Valentin Kataev, Russian novelist and dramatist (born 1897)
• April 14
  • Simone de Beauvoir, French philosopher and feminist writer (born 1908)
  • Jean Genet, French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist and political activist (born 1910)
• April 17 – Bessie Head, Botswanan fiction writer (born 1937)
• April 22 – Mircea Eliade, Romanian historian, philosopher and novelist (born 1907)
• May 15 – Theodore H. White, American journalist, historian and novelist (born 1915)
• June 14 – Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer (born 1899)
• August 1 – Lena Kennedy, English romantic novelist (born 1914)
• August 3 – Beryl Markham, English-born Kenyan aviator and author (born 1902)
• August 20 – Milton Acorn, Canadian poet, writer and playwright (born 1923)
• September 11 – Noel Streatfeild, English novelist and children's writer (born 1895)
• December 17 – J. F. Hendry, Scottish poet (born 1912)
• December 19 – V. C. Andrews, American novelist (born 1923)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Wole Soyinka

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Robin Walton, Glace Fruits
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Rhyll McMaster, Washing the Money and John A. Scott, St. Clair
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Robert Gray Selected Poems 1963–83
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Stephen Williams, A Crowd of Voices
• Miles Franklin Award: Elizabeth Jolley, The Well

Canada

• See 1986 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Michel Host, Valet de nuit
• Prix Médicis French: Pierre Combescot, Les Funérailles de la Sardine
• Prix Médicis International: John Hawkes, Aventures dans le commerce des peaux en Alaska

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Berlie Doherty, Granny Was a Buffer Girl
• Cholmondeley Award: Lawrence Durrell, James Fenton, Selima Hill
• Eric Gregory Award: Mick North, Lachlan Mackinnon, Oliver Reynolds, Stephen Romer
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Jenny Joseph, Persephone
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: D. Felicitas Corrigan, Helen Waddell
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Norman MacCaig
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Robley Wilson, Kingdoms of the Ordinary
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Sidney Kingsley
• Frost Medal: Allen Ginsberg / Richard Eberhart
• Nebula Award: Orson Scott Card, Speaker For the Dead
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Patricia MacLachlan, Sarah, Plain and Tall
• Prometheus Award: Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Henry Taylor, The Flying Change
• Whiting Awards:

Fiction: Kent Haruf, Denis Johnson, Padgett Powell, Mona Simpson

Poetry: John Ash, Hayden Carruth, Frank Stewart, Ruth Stone

Nonfiction: Darryl Pinckney (nonfiction/fiction)

Plays: August Wilson

Elsewhere

• Premio Nadal: Manuel Vicent, Balada de Caín