1989 in literature

See also: 1988 in literature, other events of 1989, 1990 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• February 24 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini places a US$3 million bounty for the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie.

New books

• Geek Love – Katherine Dunn
• And the Ass Saw the Angel  – Nick Cave
• The Cardinal of the Kremlin  – Tom Clancy
• Chronicle of the French Revolution – Jean Favier et al
• Daddy – Danielle Steel
• The Face of Battle – John Keegan
• Foucault's Pendulum  – Umberto Eco
• The Great and Secret Show  – Clive Barker
• Guards! Guards! – Terry Pratchett
• Hyperion  – Dan Simmons
• It's Always Something  – Gilda Radner
• Jasmine – Bharati Mukherjee
• The Joy Luck Club  – Amy Tan
• The Legacy of Heorot – Larry Niven
• London Fields – Martin Amis
• Lot's Wife – Tom Wakefield
• The Magick of Candleburning – Gerina Dunwich
• The Negotiator  – Frederick Forsyth
• The Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett
• A Prayer For Owen Meany – John Irving
• Pyramids – Terry Pratchett
• Red Phoenix  – Larry Bond
• The Remains of the Day  – Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Russia House  – John le Carré
• The Sands of Time  – Sidney Sheldon
• The Satanic Verses  – Salman Rushdie
• Six Days in Havana  – James A. Michener
• Solomon Gursky Was Here  – Mordecai Richler
• Star  – Danielle Steel
• The Temple of My Familiar  – Alice Walker
• A Time to Kill – John Grisham
• Total Recall – Piers Anthony
• While My Pretty One Sleeps  – Mary Higgins Clark
• New Revised Standard Version of the Bible
• Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony by Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon

Births

Deaths

• January 8 – Bruce Chatwin, travel writer and novelist
• February 3 – John Cassavetes, actor, director, writer
• March 14 – Edward Abbey, essayist
• March 27 – Malcolm Cowley, novelist and poet
• April 19 – Daphne du Maurier, writer
• May 19 – C. L. R. James, journalist
• August 23 – R. D. Laing, psychologist and author
• September 4 – Georges Simenon, Maigret author
• September 4 – Sir Ronald Syme, Classicist
• September 15 – Robert Penn Warren, poet
• September 30 – Horace Alexander, pacifist writer, 100
• October 13 – Cesare Zavattini, screenwriter
• December 19 – Stella Gibbons, novelist
• December 26 – Paul Jennings, humorist
• December – George Seldon

Awards

• Booker Prize: Kazuo Ishiguro – The Remains of the Day
• See 1989 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Nebula Award: Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, The Healer's War
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Paul Fleischman, Joyful Noise
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Camilo José Cela
• Prix Goncourt: Jean Vautrin, Un grand pas vers le Bon Dieu
• Prix Décembre: Guy Dupré, Les Manoeuvres d'automne
• Prix Médicis French: Serge Dubrovsky, Le Livre brisé
• Prix Médicis International: Alvaro Mutis, La Neige de l'amiral
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Wendy Wasserstein, The Heidi Chronicles
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Anne Tyler – Breathing Lessons
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Wilbur: New and Collected Poems
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Richard Holmes, Coleridge: Early Visions