1986 in literature

See also: 1985 in literature, other events of 1986, 1987 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

New books

• Extinction  – Thomas Bernhard
• The Bourne Supremacy  – Robert Ludlum
• The Bridge  – Iain Banks
• Cadillac Desert – Marc Reisner
• The Fence Post Chronicles – W.P. Kinsella
• The Fisher King – Anthony Powell
• Ghost – Piers Anthony
• The Golden Cup – Belva Plain
• Hollywood Husbands  – Jackie Collins
• I'll Take Manhattan  – Judith Krantz
• In the Hollow of His Hand – James Purdy
• It  – Stephen King
• Kara Kush – Idries Shah
• Kate Vaiden – Reynolds Price
• Last of the Breed  – Louis L'Amour
• Leo Africanus – Amin Maalouf
• The Light Fantastic – Terry Pratchett
• Love You Forever – Robert Munsch
• The Making of the Atomic Bomb – Richard Rhodes
• A Matter of Honour  – Jeffrey Archer
• The Moronic Inferno and Other Visits to America – Martin Amis
• The Old Devils  – Kingsley Amis
• A Perfect Spy – John le Carré
• The Prince of Tides – Pat Conroy
• Red Storm Rising  – Tom Clancy
• Speaker for the Dead – Orson Scott Card
• Sportswriter – Richard Ford
• Wanderlust  – Danielle Steel
• Whirlwind – James Clavell
• Women of the Left Bank: Paris 1900–1940 – Shari Benstock

Births

Deaths

• January 1 – Lord David Cecil, critic and biographer
• January 4 – Christopher Isherwood, novelist
• January 24 – L. Ron Hubbard, science fiction writer, founder of Scientology
• February 11 – Frank Herbert, American science fiction author
• February 26 – Robert Penn Warren, poet, author
• March 4 – Elizabeth Smart, Canadian poet and novelist
• March 18 – Bernard Malamud, novelist
• April 14 – Simone de Beauvoir, philosopher and feminist writer
• May 15 – Theodore H. White, writer
• June 14 – Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer
• August 3 – Beryl Markham, traveller and author
• August 20 – Milton Acorn, Canadian poet, writer, and playwright
• December 17 – J. F. Hendry, poet
• December 19 – Virginia C. Andrews, novelist

Awards

• Booker Prize: Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils
• See 1986 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Nebula Award: Orson Scott Card, Speaker For the Dead
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Patricia MacLachlan, Sarah, Plain and Tall
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Wole Soyinka
• Prix Goncourt: Michel Host , Valet de nuit
• Prix Médicis French: Pierre Combescot, Les Funérailles de la Sardine
• Prix Médicis International: John Hawkes, Aventures dans le commerce des peaux en Alaska
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Henry Taylor, The Flying Change
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World