1985 in literature

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The year 1985 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• A memorial to Hugh MacDiarmid is unveiled near his home at Langholm, Scotland.

New prose fiction

• Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire
• Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale
• Jean M. Auel - The Mammoth Hunters
• Iain Banks - Walking on Glass
• Clive Barker - The Damnation Game
• Greg Bear - Blood Music and Eon
• Anthony Burgess - The Kingdom of the Wicked
• M. C. Beaton - Death of a Gossip
• Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game
• Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe's Honour
• Elizabeth Darrell - At the Going Down of the Sun
• Don DeLillo - White Noise
• Friedrich Dürrenmatt - The Execution of Justice
• Bret Easton Ellis - Less Than Zero
• John Fowles - A Maggot
• Gabriel García Márquez - Love in the Time of Cholera
• Graham Greene - The Tenth Man
• Imil Habibi - The Secret Life of Saeed
• Amy Hempel - Reasons to Live
• Frank Herbert - Chapterhouse: Dune
• John Irving - The Cider House Rules
• Garrison Keillor - Lake Wobegon Days
• Stephen King - Skeleton Crew
• László Krasznahorkai - Satantango
• Doris Lessing - The Good Terrorist
• H. P. Lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels and The Dunwich Horror and Others (corrected edition)
• Richard A. Lupoff - Lovecraft's Book
• Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian
• Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove
• John D. MacDonald - The Lonely Silver Rain
• Naguib Mahfouz - Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth
• James A. Michener - Texas
• Brian Moore - Black Robe
• Bharati Mukherjee - Darkness
• Iris Murdoch - The Good Apprentice
• Orhan Pamuk - The White Castle
• Robert B. Parker - Catskill Eagle
• Caryl Phillips - The Final Passage
• Peter Pohl - Johnny, My Friend (Janne, min vän)
• Charles Portis - Masters of Atlantis
• Carl Sagan - Contact
• Sidney Sheldon - If Tomorrow Comes
• Danielle Steel - Secrets
• Antonio Tabucchi - Little Misunderstandings of No Importance
• Sue Townsend - Rebuilding Coventry
• Anne Tyler - The Accidental Tourist
• Andrew Vachss - Flood
• Jeanette Winterson - Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
• Roger Zelazny - Trumps of Doom

New drama

• David Hare & Howard Brenton - Pravda
• Wallace Shawn - Aunt Dan and Lemon
• Sam Shepard - A Lie of the Mind
• Neil Simon - Biloxi Blues
• August Wilson - Fences

Poetry

• Carol Ann Duffy - Standing Female Nude

Non-fiction

• Roger Caron - Bingo! The Horrifying Eyewitness Account of a Prison Riot
• Michael Denton - Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
• Elaine Dundy - Elvis and Gladys
• Wayne Kritsberg - The Adult Children of Alcoholics Syndrome
• Tim O'Brien - The Nuclear Age
• Priscilla Beaulieu Presley - Elvis and Me
• David Robinson - Chaplin: His Life and Art
• Oliver Sacks - The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Births

Deaths

• February 6 - James Hadley Chase, novelist
• March 15 - Radha Krishna Choudhary, Indian historian and writer
• April 7 - Carl Schmitt, political theorist
• July 16 - Heinrich Böll, German writer, Nobel laureate
• August 14 - Alfred Hayes, novelist and poet
• August 30 - Taylor Caldwell, novelist
• October 24 - László Bíró, inventor of the ballpoint pen
• November 3 - John Michael Wallace-Hadrill, historian
• November 25 - Geoffrey Grigson, poet and critic
• December 7 - Robert Graves
• date unknown
  • Hedley Bull, economist

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Claude Simon

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: no award given out this year
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Kevin Hart, Your Shadow; Rosemary Dobson, The Three Fates
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, Kevin Hart, Your Shadow
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Doris Brett, The Truth about Unicorns

Canada

• See 1985 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Yann Queffélec, Les Noces barbares
• Prix Médicis French: Michel Braudeau, Naissance d'une passion
• Prix Médicis International: Joseph Heller, God Knows

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Keri Hulme, The Bone People
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Kevin Crossley-Holland, Storm
• Cholmondeley Award: Dannie Abse, Peter Redgrove, Brian Taylor
• Eric Gregory Award: Graham Mort, Adam Thorpe, Pippa Little, James Harpur, Simon North, Julian May
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Robert Edric, Winter Garden
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: David Nokes, Jonathan Swift: A Hypocrite Reversed
• Newdigate prize: Robert Twigger
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Douglas Dunn, Elegies

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Liz Rosenberg, The Fire Music
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Poetry, Robert Penn Warren
• Frost Medal: Robert Penn Warren
• Nebula Award: Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: James Lapine for book; Stephen Sondheim for music and lyrics, Sunday in the Park With George
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Alison Lurie - Foreign Affairs
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Carolyn Kizer: Yin

Elsewhere

• Premio Nadal: Pau Faner Coll - Flor de sal