1980 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. In 2001, the book would be named as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the editorial board of the American Modern Library.

New Books

• 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[?]
• The Devil's Alternative[?] - Frederick Forsyth[?]
• The Fifth Horseman[?] - Larry Collins[?] and Dominique Lapierre[?]
• Firestarter[?] - Stephen King
• Joshua Then and Now[?] - Mordecai Richler
• In Loon Lake[?] - E.L. Doctorow
• The Invasion of Canada[?] - Pierre Berton
• 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[?]

Births

Deaths

• January 3 - Joy Adamson, conservationist and author of Born Free[?] (killed by a servant in northern Kenya).
• June 7 - Henry Miller, writer
• December 2 - Romain Gary, writer
• December 8 - John Lennon, musician, author
• December 31 - Marshall McLuhan (author)

Awards

• Booker Prize: William Golding, Rites of Passage
• Newberry Medal for children's literature: Joan Blos[?], A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Czeslaw Milosz
• 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