1987 in literature

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The year 1987 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• Tom Wolfe was paid $5 million for the film rights to his novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, the most ever earned by an author, at the time.

Published books

Fiction

• Chinua Achebe - Anthills of the Savannah
• Peter Ackroyd - Chatterton (shortlisted for Booker Prize 1987)
• Douglas Adams - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
• Martin Amis - Einstein's Monsters
• Gilles Archambault - L'Obsédante obèse et autres agressions
• Paul Auster - The New York Trilogy & In the Country of Last Things
• Iain Banks - Consider Phlebas (as Iain M. Banks) and Espedair Street
• Clive Barker - Weaveworld
• Greg Bear - The Forge of God
• Thomas Berger - Being Invisible
• William Boyd - The New Confessions
• Truddi Chase - When Rabbit Howls
• Tom Clancy - Patriot Games
• Hugh Cook - The Wordsmiths and the Warguild and The Women and the Warlords
• Bernard Cornwell - Redcoat and Sharpe's Rifles
• Robert Crais - The Monkey's Raincoat
• L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp - The Incorporated Knight
• Jenny Diski - Rainforest
• Jim Dodge - Not Fade Away
• Roddy Doyle - The Commitments
• Bret Easton Ellis - The Rules of Attraction
• James Ellroy - Black Dahlia
• John Gardner - No Deals, Mr. Bond
• Kaye Gibbons - Ellen Foster
• Ken Grimwood - Replay
• Tom Holt - Expecting Someone Taller
• Josephine Humphreys - Rich in Love
• John Jakes - Heaven and Hell
• Garrison Keillor - Leaving Home
• Stephen King - Misery, The Tommyknockers, and The Eyes of the Dragon
• Penelope Lively - Moon Tiger
• Ian McEwan - The Child in Time
• Betty Mahmoody - Not Without My Daughter
• James A. Michener - Legacy (1987 novel)
• Toni Morrison - Beloved
• Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood
• V. S. Naipaul - The Enigma of Arrival
• Michael Ondaatje - In the Skin of A Lion
• Robert B. Parker - Pale Kings and Princes
• Rosamunde Pilcher - The Shell Seekers
• Peter Pohl - Vi kallar honom Anna
• Terry Pratchett - Equal Rites and Mort
• Paul Quarrington - King Leary
• Edward Rutherfurd - Sarum
• José Saramago - Baltasar and Blimunda
• Leonardo Sciascia - Porte aperte
• Michael Shea - Polyphemus
• Sidney Sheldon - Windmills of the Gods
• Lucius Shepard - The Jaguar Hunter
• Carol Shields - Swann: A Mystery
• Michael Slade - Ghoul
• Danielle Steel - Fine Things and Kaleidoscope
• Ruth Thomas - The Runaways
• Scott Turow - Presumed Innocent
• Andrew Vachss - Strega
• Barbara Vine - A Fatal Inversion
• Kurt Vonnegut - Bluebeard
• Gene Wolfe - The Urth of the New Sun
• Tom Wolfe - The Bonfire of the Vanities
• Roger Zelazny - Sign of Chaos
• Gary Paulsen - Hatchet
• Jesse Lee Kercheval - The Dogeater

Non-fiction

• Allan Bloom - The Closing of the American Mind
• Bruce Chatwin - The Songlines
• Bill Cosby - Time Flies
• Andrea Dworkin - Intercourse
• Paul Kennedy - The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict From 1500 to 2000
• Nien Cheng - Life and Death in Shanghai
• Salman Rushdie - The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey
• Peter Wright - Spycatcher

Births

Deaths

• February 2 - Alistair MacLean, British thriller writer, heart attack
• February 10 - William Rose, screenwriter
• February 22 - Andy Warhol, artist, director, writer
• March 4 - Maria Jolas, literary publisher
• April 4 - C. L. Moore, science fiction author
• April 11 - Erskine Caldwell, novelist
• May 30 - Norman Nicholson, poet
• September 25 - Emlyn Williams, dramatist
• September 30 - Alfred Bester, science fiction writer
• October 3 - Jean Anouilh, dramatist
• October 8 - Roger Lancelyn Green, biographer and children's author
• October 31 - Joseph Campbell, author and expert on mythology
• November 29 - Gwendolyn MacEwen, Canadian poet
• December 1 - James Baldwin, novelist
• December 17 - Marguerite Yourcenar, novelist

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Joseph Brodsky

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Jim Sakkas, Ilias
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Lily Brett, The Auschwitz Poems
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Philip Hodgins, Blood and Bone
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Jan Owen - Boy with Telescope

Canada

• See 1987 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Tahar ben Jelloun, La Nuit sacrée
• Prix Médicis French: Pierre Mertens, Les Éblouissements
• Prix Médicis International: Antonio Tabucchi, Indian Nocturne

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Susan Price, The Ghost Drum
• Cholmondeley Award: Wendy Cope, Matthew Sweeney, George Szirtes
• Eric Gregory Award: Peter McDonald, Maura Dooley, Stephen Knight, Steve Anthony, Jill Maughan, Paul Munden
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: George Mackay Brown, The Golden Bird: Two Orkney Stories
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Ruth Dudley Edwards, Victor Gollancz: A Biography
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Christopher Nolan, Under the Eye of the Clock
• Sunday Express Book of the Year: Brian Moore, The Colour of Blood

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: David Rivard, Torque
• Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Howard Nemerov
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Belles Lettres: Jacques Barzun
• Frost Medal: Robert Creeley / Sterling Brown
• Nebula Award: Pat Murphy, The Falling Woman
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Sid Fleischman The Whipping Boy
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: August Wilson, Fences
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Peter Taylor, A Summons to Memphis
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Rita Dove, Thomas and Beulah

Elsewhere

• Premio Nadal: Juan José Saer, La ocasión