1971 in literature

See also: 1970 in literature, other events of 1971, 1972 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• The Destiny Waltz by Gerda Charles wins England's first Whitbread Novel of the Year Award.

• Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner is published.

New books

• Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner
• The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman – Ernest J. Gaines
• Being There  – Jerzy Kosinski
• The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
• The Betsy  – Harold Robbins
• Bonecrack – Dick Francis
• The Book of Daniel  – E. L. Doctorow
• Books Do Furnish a Room – Anthony Powell
• Crow – Ted Hughes
• The Day of the Jackal  – Frederick Forsyth
• Death of the Fox – George Garrett
• The Drifters  – James A. Michener
• The End of Summer  – Rosamunde Pilcher
• The Exorcist  – William Peter Blatty
• Grendel – John Gardner
• The Happy Hooker: My Own Story – Xaviera Hollander
• Honor Thy Father  – Gay Talese
• In a Free State – V.S. Naipaul
• The Last Spike – Pierre Berton
• The Lathe of Heaven – Ursula K. Le Guin
• Lives of Girls and Women – Alice Munro
• The Naive and Sentimental Lover – John le Carré
• Natalie Natalia – Nicholas Mosley
• The Other  – Thomas Tyron
• The Passions of the Mind  – Irving Stone
• Rabbit Redux  – John Updike
• St. Urbain's Horseman – Mordecai Richler
• A Scarcity of Love  – Anna Kavan
• Sergeant Getulio – Joao Ubaldo Ribeiro
• A Theory of Justice  – John Rawls
• The Winds of War  – Herman Wouk
• The Winter of the Fisher – Cameron Langford
• Wheels  – Arthur Hailey

Births

• January 7 – Helen Darville, writer
• March 10 – Ugonna Wachuku, poet, creative writer, author
• July 17 – Cory Doctorow, science fiction writer

Deaths

• March 5 – Allan Nevins, journalist
• March 7 – Stevie Smith, poet
• April 10 – André Billy, French author
• May 19 – Ogden Nash, poet and humorist
• May 20 – Waldo Williams, Welsh language poet
• June 1 – Reinhold Niebuhr, theologian
• June 4 – Georg Lukács, philosopher and critic
• June 6 – Edward Andrade, poet and physicist
• July 4 – August Derleth, anthologist
• July 7 – Claude Gauvreau, poet and dramatist
• August 30 – Peter Fleming, travel writer and brother of Ian Fleming
• October 25 – Philip Gordon Wylie, novelist
• December 25 – S. Foster Damon, critic and poet
• date unknown – Clifford Dyment, poet
• date unknown – St. John Greer Ervine, dramatist
• date unknown – Jacques Lusseyran, blind author

Awards

• Akutagawa Prize: Azuma Mineo, Okinawan Boy
• Booker Prize: V. S. Naipaul, In a Free State
• See 1971 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Hugo Award: Larry Niven, Ringworld
• Nebula Award: Robert Silverberg, A Time of Changes
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Betsy Bears, Summer of the Swans
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Pablo Neruda
• Prix Goncourt: Jacques Laurent, Les Bêtises
• Prix Médicis: Pascal Lainé, L'Irrévolution
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Paul Zindel, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: William S. Merwin, The Carrier of Ladders
• Viareggio Prize: Ugo Attardi, L'erede selvaggio