1970 in literature

See also: 1969 in literature, other events of 1970, 1971 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• Deliverance by American poet James Dickey published. In 2001, the book would be named as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the editorial board of the American Modern Library.

New books

• Ali and Nino – Kurban Said
• Ball Four  – Jim Bouton
• Eagle in the Snow  – Wallace Breem
• The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
• The Crystal Cave  – Mary Stewart
• Deliverance – James Dickey
• The Fall of the Towers (Trilogy) – Samuel R. Delany
• Fifth Business  – Robertson Davies
• Frederick the Great – Nancy Mitford
• The French Lieutenant's Woman  – John Fowles
• The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight  – Jimmy Breslin
• Great Lion of God  – Taylor Caldwell
• A Happy Death (La Mort heureuse)  – Albert Camus
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
• I'm the King of the Castle – Susan Hill
• Inside the Third Reich  – Albert Speer
• Julia and the Bazooka  – Anna Kavan
• Kamouraska – Anne Hébert
• Love Story  – Erich Segal
• The Malay Dilemma – Mahathir bin Mohamad
• The Naked Face  – Sidney Sheldon
• The National Dream – Pierre Berton
• Only the Ball was White – Robert Peterson
• QB VII – Leon Uris
• Ringworld – Larry Niven
• The Trumpet Of The Swan – E.B. White
• Travels with My Aunt  – Graham Greene

Births

• September 10 – Phaswane Mpe, novelist, (d. 2004)
• September 24 – Gemma Moraleja Paz, poet and novelist
• unknown date – Alex Garland, novelist
• unknown date – Jonathan Stroud, fantasy writer

Deaths

• January 10 – Charles Olson, poet
• January 29 – Basil Liddell Hart, military historian
• February 2 – Bertrand Russell, philosopher
• March 11 – Erle Stanley Gardner, Perry Mason author
• March 29 – Vera Brittain, novelist and poet
• April 11 – John O'Hara, novelist
• May 12 – Nelly Sachs, poet and dramatist
• June 3 – Adrian Conan Doyle, son and literary executor of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• June 7 – E. M. Forster, novelist
• June 16 – Elsa Triolet, novelist
• July 15 – Eric Berne, psychiatrist and author
• September 1 – François Mauriac, novelist
• September 28 – John Dos Passos, novelist
• November 25 – Yukio Mishima, Japanese author and rightist political activist (suicide)

Awards

• Booker Prize: Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member
• See 1970 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• 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
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Alexander Solzhenitsyn
• 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
• 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
• Viareggio Prize: Nello Saito, Dentro e fuori