1971 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1971.

March 25–December 14 – The 1971 killing of Bengali intellectuals reaches a peak.
April 21 – The 13th-century Codex Regius manuscript is returned by DenmarktoIceland under naval escort.
June 30 – Release of musical film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in the United States, based on Roald Dahl's 1964 children's novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Although Dahl is credited for the screenplay, creative differences with the production team cause him to disown the picture.^[1]
July 4 – Michael S. Hart posts the first e-book, a copy of the United States Declaration of Independence, on the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign's mainframe computer, as the origin of Project Gutenberg.^[2]
July 14 – Simon Gray's play Butley has its first performance at the Criterion Theatre in London, produced by Michael Codron and directed by Harold Pinter, with Alan Bates in the lead.
October 20 – The Destiny WaltzbyGerda Charles wins the U.K.'s first Whitbread Novel of the Year Award. Geoffrey Hill wins the poetry prize for Mercian Hymns and Michael Meyer the biography category for Henrik Ibsen.^[3]
November – Hunter S. Thompson's roman à clef Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream is first published in Rolling Stone, as a two-part article illustrated by Ralph Steadman.
November 29 – Yuri Lyubimov's production of Hamlet is seen first at the Taganka Theatre in Moscow, with singer-songwriter and poet Vladimir Vysotsky in the lead.^[4]
December 24 – The Dutch writer and broadcaster Godfried Bomans is buried in the Sint-Adelbertskerkhof (St. Adelbert Cemetery) in Bloemendaal, the Netherlands, two days after he dies from a heart attack.
unknown date – Powell's Books opens its first bookstore in Portland, Oregon.^[5]

Dario Fo – Tutti uniti! Tutti insieme! Ma scusa, quello non è il padrone? (United We Stand! All Together Now! Oops, Isn't That the Boss?)
Simon Gray – Butley
Peter Handke – Der Ritt über den Bodensee (The Ride across Lake Constance)
Franz Xaver Kroetz
- Hartnäckig (Persistent)
- Heimarbeit (Housework)
- Michis Blut: ein Requiem auf bairisch (Michi's Blood: a Requiem in Bavarian)
- Stallerhof
- Wildwechsel
Mustapha Matura – As Time Goes By
John Mortimer – A Voyage Round My Father (stage version)
Martin Walser – Ein Kinderspiel

Poetry

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Maya Angelou – Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie
Kofi Awoonor – Night of My Blood
Donald S. Fryer – Songs and Sonnets Atlantean
Alan Llwyd – Y March Hud (The Magic Horse)
Clark Ashton Smith – Selected Poems

Non-fiction

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G. E. M. Anscombe – Causality and Determination
Pierre Berton – The Last Spike
Carlos Castaneda – A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan
Dharampal – Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts
Robert Coles
- Migrants, Sharecroppers, Mountaineers, vol. 2 of Children of Crisis
- The South Goes North, vol 3. of Children of Crisis
Carl N. Degler – Neither Black nor White
Brian J. Ford – Nonscience
Robert Foster – The Complete Guide to Middle-earth
Eduardo Galeano – Open Veins of Latin America (Las venas abiertas de América Latina)
Joan Garrity – The Sensuous Woman
Ionel Gherea – Despre cîteva absurdități folositoare (On Those More Useful Absurdities)
Graham Greene – A Sort of Life
Xaviera Hollander – The Happy Hooker: My Own Story
H. P. Lovecraft – Selected Letters III (1929–1931)
Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel – Hess: A Biography
Spike Milligan – Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall
Alison Plowden – Young Elizabeth
John Rawls – A Theory of Justice
B. F. Skinner – Beyond Freedom and Dignity
Keith Thomas – Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in 16th and 17th-century England
Pierre Vallières – White Niggers of America (translation)
Esther Vilar – The Manipulated Man

January 6 – Karin Slaughter, American crime novelist
January 16 – Helen Darville, Australian novelist
January 18 – Binyavanga Wainaina, Kenyan writer (died 2019)
January 25 – Philip Coppens, Belgian journalist and author (died 2012)
February 3 – Sarah Kane, English playwright (suicide 1999)
March 13 – Viet Thanh Nguyen, Vietnamese fiction writer
March 29 – José Luis Rodríguez Pittí, Panamanian writer and photographer
May 9 – Dan Chiasson, American poet, critic and journalist
May 25 - Nicole Luiken, Canadian science fiction writer
June 4 – Karl Martin Sinijärv, Estonian journalist and poet
June 28 – Sophie Hannah, English poet and novelist
July 17 – Cory Doctorow, Canadian science fiction writer^[10]
July 22 – Akhil Sharma, Indian novelist
July 23 – Mohsin Hamid, Pakistani fiction writer
September 3 – Kiran Desai, Indian novelist
October 17 - Patrick Ness, British-American speculative fiction author
October 25 – Elif Shafak (Elif Şafak), French-born Turkish novelist
November 5 – Rana Dasgupta, English-born Indian novelist
December 19 – Tristan Egolf, American novelist and activist (died 2005)
unknown dates
- Petina Gappah, Zambian-born fiction writer
- John Wray, American novelist

January 18 – N. Porsenna, Romanian novelist, essayist, poet and social psychologist (Parkinson's disease, born 1892)
January 24 – St. John Greer Ervine, Irish-born dramatist (born 1883)^[11]
March 5 – Allan Nevins, American journalist and historian (born 1890)^[12]
March 7 – Stevie Smith (Florence Margaret Smith), English poet and novelist (born 1902)^[13]
March 21 – Kyūya Fukada (深田久弥), Japanese writer and mountaineer (born 1903)
March 23 – Simon Vestdijk, Dutch writer (born 1898)^[14]
April 10 – André Billy, French novelist (born 1882)^[15]
April 13 – Juhan Smuul, Estonian writer (born 1922)
April 15 – Friedebert Tuglas, Estonian writer and critic (born 1886)^[16]
May 19 – Ogden Nash, American poet and humorist (born 1902)^[17]
May 20 – Waldo Williams, Welsh-language poet (born 1904)^[18]
June 1 – Reinhold Niebuhr, American theologian (born 1892)^[19]
June 4 – György Lukács (György Bernát Löwinger), Hungarian philosopher and critic (born 1885)^[20]
June 5 – Clifford Dyment, English poet (born 1914)^[21]
June 6 – Edward Andrade, English writer, poet and physicist (born 1887)^[22]
July 4
- Maurice Bowra, English poet, humorist and Oxford don (born 1898)^[23]
- August Derleth, American writer and anthologist (heart attack, born 1909)^[24]
July 7 – Claude Gauvreau, Québécois Canadian poet and dramatist (born 1925)^[25]
July 27 – Jacques Lusseyran, French author and Resistance fighter (car crash, born 1924)^[26]
August 30 – Peter Fleming, English travel writer and traveller (born 1907)^[27]
October 13 – János Kemény, American-born Hungarian writer and editor (born 1903)
October 21 – Naoya Shiga, Japanese novelist (pneumonia, born 1883)^[28]
October 25 – Philip Wylie, American novelist and non-fiction writer (born 1902)^[29]
November – Lucia Mantu, Romanian writer (born 1888)^[30]
November 1 – Gertrud von Le Fort, German novelist, poet and essayist (born 1876)^[31]
November 10 – Walter Van Tilburg Clark, American novelist (cancer, born 1909)^[32]
November 11 – A. P. Herbert, English humorist, novelist and politician (born 1890)^[33]
November 28 – Dimitrie Stelaru (Dumitru Petrescu), Romanian poet and novelist (cirrhosis, born 1917)
November 29 – Edith Tolkien (née Bratt), English wife of J. R. R. Tolkien (born 1889)^[34]
December 5 – Gaito Gazdanov, Russian-born novelist (born 1903)^[35]
December 22 – Godfried Bomans, Dutch writer and broadcaster (heart attack, born 1913)
December 25 – S. Foster Damon, American critic and poet (born 1893)^[36]

Nobel Prize for Literature: Pablo Neruda

Canada

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See 1971 Governor General's Awards for complete list.

France

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Prix Goncourt: Jacques Laurent, Les Bêtises
Prix Médicis: Pascal Lainé, L'Irrévolution

United Kingdom

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Booker Prize: V. S. Naipaul, In a Free State
Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Ivan Southall, Josh^[37]
Cholmondeley Award: Charles Causley, Gavin Ewart, Hugo Williams
Eric Gregory Award: Martin Booth, Florence Bull, John Pook, D. M. Warman, John Welch
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Nadine Gordimer, A Guest of Honour
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Julia Namier, Lewis Namier
Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Stephen Spender

United States

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Frost Medal: Melville Cane
Hugo Award: Larry Niven, Ringworld
Nebula Award: Robert Silverberg, A Time of Changes
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Betsy Byars, Summer of the Swans^[38]
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Paul Zindel, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: no award given
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: William S. Merwin, The Carrier of Ladders

Elsewhere

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Akutagawa Prize: Azuma Mineo, Okinawan Boy
Miles Franklin Award: David Ireland, The Unknown Industrial Prisoner
Alfaguara Prize: Luis Berenguer, Leña verde
Premio Nadal: José María Requena, El cuajarón
Viareggio Prize: Ugo Attardi, L'erede selvaggio

Hahn, Daniel (2015). The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (2nd ed.). Oxford. University Press. ISBN 9780198715542.

^ Falky, Ben (2016-09-12). "Why Roald Dahl Hated the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Film". Yahoo! Movies. Archived from the original on 2018-09-13. Retrieved 2019-09-30.

^ Hart, Michael (August 1992). "The History and Philosophy of Project Gutenberg". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 2011-10-05..

^ "Whitbreads in Literary World". The Glasgow Herald. 1971-10-21. p. 16. Retrieved 2014-06-05.

^ Novikov, V. I. (2010). Vysotsky. The Lives of Distinguished People (in Russian) (6th ed.). Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya. p. 151. ISBN 978-5-235-03353-5.

^ Thomas Derdak (1988). International Directory of Company Histories. St. James Press. p. 360. ISBN 978-0-912289-10-6.

^ Hahn 2015, p.43

^ Hahn 2015, p. 259

^ Hahn 2015, p. 622

^ Hahn 2015, p. 528

^ Gale, Cengage (13 December 2018). "A Study Guide for Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother"". Gale, Cengage Learning. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-02-866534-4.

^ Frank Northen Magill (1985). Critical Survey of Drama: Authors A-Z. Salem Press. p. 559. ISBN 978-0-89356-377-6.

^ Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents. Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration. 1971. p. 758.

^ Sanford Sternlicht (1990). Stevie Smith. Twayne Publishers. pp. 11–16. ISBN 978-0-8057-6990-6.

^ Sara Pendergast; Tom Pendergast (2003). Reference Guide to World Literature: Authors. St. James Press. p. 1059. ISBN 978-1-55862-491-7.

^ "Andre Billy, 88, critic in France". New York Times. April 12, 1971. Retrieved March 25, 2021.

^ Books Abroad. University of Oklahoma. 1973. p. 636.

^ Ron Padgett (2000). World Poets: Gerard Manley Hopkins-William Shakespeare. Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 245. ISBN 978-0-684-80609-9.

^ Poetry Wales. C. Davies. 1971. p. 3.

^ Richard Wightman Fox (1987). Reinhold Niebuhr: A Biography. Harper & Row. p. 292. ISBN 978-0-06-250343-5.

^ Judith Marcus; Zoltan Tarr (1 January 1989). Georg Lukacs: Theory, Culture, and Politics. Transaction Publishers. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-4128-2451-4.

^ Peter Dale, "Dyment, Clifford" in The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English, Ian Hamilton (ed.), Oxford Univ. Press, 1994, p. 142. ISBN 0-19-866147-9

^ Alan Symons (1997). The Jewish Contribution to the 20th Century. Polo Pub. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-9523751-1-1.

^ Stephen Spender; Irving Kristol (July 1972). Encounter. Encounter Limited. p. 11.

^ Michael Ashley (2000). The History of the Science-fiction Magazine. Liverpool University Press. p. 300. ISBN 978-0-85323-779-2.

^ Claude Gauvreau (1996). The Charge of the Expormidable Moose. Exile Editions, Ltd. p. 155. ISBN 978-1-55096-181-2.

^ "Jacques Lusseyran". Buchenwald.de. Retrieved March 25, 2021.

^ Frank C. Roberts (1979). Obituaries from the Times: Including an Index to All Obituaries and Tributes Appearing in the Times During the Years 1951-1975. Newspaper Archive Developments. p. 185. ISBN 978-0-903713-97-9.

^ Grolier Incorporated (March 1998). The Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Incorporated. p. 712.

^ Clifford P. Bendau (1 January 1980). Still Worlds Collide: Philip Wylie and the End of the American Dream. Wildside Press LLC. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-89370-244-1.

^ Aurel Sasu (ed.), Dicționarul biografic al literaturii române, vol. II, p. 592. Pitești: Editura Paralela 45, 2004. ISBN 973-697-758-7

^ Katharina M. Wilson; M. Wilson (1991). An Encyclopedia of Continental Women Writers. Taylor & Francis. p. 459. ISBN 978-0-8240-8547-6.

^ Lawrence L. Lee (1973). Walter Van Tilburg Clark. Boise State College. pp. 13–16. ISBN 978-0-88430-007-6.

^ Stanley Weintraub (1982). Modern British Dramatists, 1900-1945. Gale Research Company. p. 231. ISBN 978-0-8103-0937-1.

^ Paul Simpson; Angie Errigo (2003). The Rough Guide to the Lord of the Rings. Rough Guides. p. 48. ISBN 9781843532750.

^ Neil Cornwell (2 December 2013). Reference Guide to Russian Literature. Routledge. p. 318. ISBN 978-1-134-26070-6.

^ Gale Cengage (1986). American Poets, 1880-1945, First Series. Gale Research Company. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-8103-1723-9.

^ Hahn 2015, p. 660

^ Hahn 2015, p. 657

1971 in literature

Contents

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards

Canada

France

United Kingdom

United States

Elsewhere

Notes

References

Languages