1980 in literature

See also: 1979 in literature, other events of 1980, 1981 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer (published 1979), reaches #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

• Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie is published.

New books

• Company – Samuel Beckett
• The Bourne Identity – Robert Ludlum
• A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
• Cosmos  – Carl Sagan
• The Covenant  – James A. Michener
• The Cradle Will Fall – Mary Higgins Clark
• Crossroads Marseilles 1940 – Mary Jayne Gold
• The Devil's Alternative  – Frederick Forsyth
• The Fifth Horseman  – Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre
• Firestarter  – Stephen King
• The Girl in a Swing – Richard Adams
• In Loon Lake – E. L. Doctorow
• The Invasion of Canada – Pierre Berton
• The Iron Wolf and Other Stories – Richard Adams
• Joshua Then and Now  – Mordecai Richler
• The Key to Rebecca – Ken Follett
• The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
• Princess Daisy – Judith Krantz
• Rage of Angels  – Sidney Sheldon
• Random Winds  – Belva Plain
• A Ring of Endless Light – Madeleine L'Engle
• Smiley's People  – John le Carré
• Song of the Wild – Allan W. Eckert
• The Third Wave – Alvin Toffler
• Thy Neighbor's Wife  – Gay Talese
• War of the Roses – Warren Adler

Births

Deaths

• January 3 – Joy Adamson, conservationist and author of Born Free

(killed by a servant in northern Kenya).

• January 3 – G. S. Fraser, poet and critic
• January 11 – Barbara Pym, novelist
• March 25 – James Wright, poet
• April 15 – Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher, novelist and dramatist
• June 7 – Henry Miller, writer
• July 1 – C. P. Snow, novelist
• July 9 – Vinicius de Moraes, poet and songwriter
• July 26 – Kenneth Tynan, influential theatre critic
• September 18 – Katherine Anne Porter, novelist and essayist
• November 9 – Patrick Campbell, journalist and wit
• November 22 – Mae West, actress and dramatist
• December 2 – Romain Gary, writer
• December 8 – John Lennon, musician, author
• December 12 – Ben Travers, dramatist
• December 31 – Marshall McLuhan (author)
• date unknown – Gareth Evans, philosopher
• date unknown – Caradog Prichard, Welsh-language poet and novelist

Awards

• Booker Prize: William Golding, Rites of Passage
• See 1980 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Nebula Award: Gregory Benford, Timescape
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Joan Blos, A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Czeslaw Milosz
• Premio Cervantes : Juan Carlos Onetti
• Prix Goncourt: Yves Navarre, Le Jardin d'acclimatation
• Prix Médicis French: Jean-Luc Benoziglio, Cabinet-portrait who refused the prize, thus it was given to Jean Lahougue's Comptine des Height
• Prix Médicis International: André Brink, Une saison blanche et sèche
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Lanford Wilson, Talley's Folly
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Norman Mailer, The Executioner's Song
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Donald Justice, Selected Poems
• Whitbread Best Book Award: David Lodge, How Far Can You Go?