1965 in literature

See also: 1964 in literature, other events of 1965, 1966 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• Frank Herbert's Dune wins the first ever Nebula Award
• The Magus – John Fowles is published.

New books

• The Autobiography of Malcolm X – Alex Haley & Malcolm X
• The British Museum Is Falling Down – David Lodge
• Dune – Frank Herbert
• Georgy Girl – Margaret Forster
• The Green Berets – Robin Moore
• Hotel  – Arthur Hailey
• The Looking-Glass War  – John le Carré
• The Magus – John Fowles
• The Man with the Golden Gun – Ian Fleming
• Markings – Dag Hammarskjöld
• The Painted Bird – Jerzy Kosinski
• The Source – James A. Michener
• Those Who Love – Irving Stone
• The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch – Philip K. Dick
• Up the Down Staircase – Bel Kaufman

Births

• March 4 – Andrew Collins, journalist and scriptwriter
• March 30 – Piers Morgan, controversial journalist and editor
• July 31 – Joanne Kathleen Rowling, author
• October 23 – Augusten Burroughs, memoirist
• December 31 – Nicholas Sparks, novelist
• date unknown – Patience Agbabi, performance poet
• date unknown – Thomas Brussig, novelist

Deaths

• January 4 – T. S. Eliot, American/British poet
• January 12 – Lorraine Hansberry, writer
• May 3 – Howard Spring, novelist
• June 5 – Thornton Burgess, children's author
• July 9 – Jacques Audiberti
• October 8 – Thomas B. Costain, popular historian
• October 15 – Randall Jarrell, poet
• November 8 – Dorothy Kilgallen, journalist
• November 20 – Katharine Anthony, biographer
• December 16 – William Somerset Maugham

Awards

• See 1965 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Hugo Award: Fritz Leiber, The Wanderer
• Nebula Award: Frank Herbert, Dune
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Maia Wojciechowska, Shadow of a Bull
• Nobel Prize for literature – Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov
• Prix Goncourt: J. Borel, L'Adoration
• Prix Médicis: René-Victor Pilhes, La Rhubarbe
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Frank D. Gilroy, The Subject Was Roses
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Shirley Ann Grau – The Keepers Of The House
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: John Berryman: 77 Dream Songs
• Viareggio Prize: Goffredo Parise, Il Padrone (The Boss)