1978 in literature

Events

Beggar Maid – Alice Munro
Bloodlines – Sidney Sheldon
Bright Flows The River – Taylor Caldwell
Chesapeake – James A. Michener
Coup – John Updike
Empire: A Visual Novel – Samuel R. Delany
Evergreen – Belva Plain
Eye of the Needle – Ken Follett
Fools Die – Mario Puzo
Going After Cacciato – Tim O'Brien
A Good School – Richard Yates
Hail The Conquering Hero – Frank Yerby
The Holcroft Covenant – Robert Ludlum
Illusions – Richard Bach
An Imaginary Life – David Malouf
In My Father's House – Ernest J.Gaines
Jake's Thing – Kingsley Amis
The Memoirs of Richard Nixon – Richard Nixon
Mommie Dearest – Christina Crawford
Night Shift – Stephen King (collection of short stories, most previously published elsewhere)
Running Dogs – Don DeLillo
Scruples – Judith Krantz
Second Generation – Howard Fast
The Stories of John Cheever – John Cheever
Success – Martin Amis
A Swiftly Tilting Planet – Madeleine L'Engle
That Vanderbilt Woman – Philip Van Rensselaer
War and Remembrance – Herman Wouk
The Wolfen – Whitley Strieber
The World According to Garp – John Irving
Young Adolf – Beryl Bainbridge
The Ends of Power – H. R. Haldeman

January 12 – Robert Harbin, author of many books on origami
March 1 – Paul Scott, Raj Quartet author
March 24 – Leigh Brackett, science fiction writer
April 14 – F. R. Leavis, literary critic
May 1 – Sylvia Townsend Warner, poet and novelist
May 12 – Louis Zukofsky, modernist poet
September 15 – Edmund Crispin, crime writer
September 28 – Pope John Paul I, author of Illustrissimi under his real name of Albino Luciani
November 15 – Margaret Mead, anthropologist and author
date unknown – Walter C. Alvarez, medical author

Booker Prize: Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea
See 1978 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
Nebula Award: Vonda McIntyre, Dreamsnake
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
Nobel Prize for Literature: Isaac Bashevis Singer
Prix Goncourt: Patrick Modiano, Rue des boutiques obscures
Prix Médicis French: Georges Perec, La vie mode d'emploi
Prix Médicis International: Alexandre Zinoviev, L’Avenir radieux – Russia
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Donald L. Coburn, The Gin Game
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: James Alan McPherson, Elbow Room
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Howard Nemerov, Collected Poems
Viareggio Prize: Antonio Altomonte, Dopo il presidente

Categories: 1978 books