1988 in literature

See also: 1987 in literature, other events of 1988, 1989 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

New books

• Alaska  – James A. Michener
• The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
• Kiki: Reine de la Montparnasse – Lou Mollgaard
• Breathing Lessons – Anne Tyler
• A Brief History of Time  – Stephen Hawking
• The Butcher – Alina Reyes
• Candlelight Spells – Gerina Dunwich
• The Cardinal of the Kremlin  – Tom Clancy
• Cat's Eye – Margaret Atwood
• The Coming of the King – Nikolai Tolstoy
• The Dark Green Tunnel – Allan W. Eckert
• The Hellbound Heart  – Clive Barker
• The Icarus Agenda  – Robert Ludlum
• Love in the Time of Cholera  – Gabriel García Márquez
• Oscar and Lucinda  – Peter Carey
• The Player of Games  – Iain M. Banks
• A Ring of Conspirators: Henry James and his literary circle, 1895–1915 – Miranda Seymour
• The Sands of Time  – Sidney Sheldon
• The Shell Seekers  – Rosamunde Pilcher
• Sourcery – Terry Pratchett
• Tapestry – Belva Plain
• Til We Meet Again  – Judith Krantz
• The Toynbee Convector – Ray Bradbury
• Wyrd Sisters – Terry Pratchett
• Zoya  – Danielle Steel

Births

Deaths

• February 3 – Robert Duncan, poet
• March – Máirtín Ó Direáin, Irish language poet
• April 12 – Alan Paton, novelist
• April 21 – I.A.L.Diamond, comedy writer
• May 8 – Robert Heinlein, science fiction author
• June 10 – Louis L'Amour, western novelist
• July 12 – Joshua Logan, stage and film writer
• August 28 – Max Shulman, novelist, short-story writer and dramatist
• September 28 – Charles Addams, American cartoonist
• October 1 – Sacheverell Sitwell, art critic, brother of Edith Sitwell and Osbert Sitwell

Awards

• Booker Prize: Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda
• See 1988 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Nebula Award: Lois McMaster Bujold, Falling Free
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Russell Freedman, Lincoln: A Photobiography
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Naguib Mahfouz
• Prix Goncourt: Erik Orsenna, L'Exposition coloniale
• Prix Médicis French: Christiane Rochefort, La Porte du fond
• Prix Médicis International: Thomas Bernhard, les Maîtres anciens
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Alfred Uhry, Driving Miss Daisy
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Toni Morrison, Beloved
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: William Meredith: Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Paul Sayer, The Comforts of Madness