1970 in literature

List of years in literature       (table)
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The year 1970 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• August 27 – The Royal Shakespeare Company premieres its revolutionary production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Peter Brook, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, England.
• December 5 – Dario Fo premieres his play Accidental Death of an Anarchist at Varese in Italy.
• Deliverance by American poet James Dickey published. In 2001, the book will 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

• Richard Bach – Jonathan Livingston Seagull
• Nina Bawden – The Birds on the Trees
• Thomas Berger – Vital Parts
• Pierre Berton – The National Dream
• Judy Blume – Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret
• Jim Bouton – Ball Four
• Melvyn Bragg - A Place in England
• Wallace Breem – Eagle in the Snow
• Jimmy Breslin – The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight
• Taylor Caldwell – Great Lion of God
• John Dickson Carr – The Ghosts' High Noon
• Agatha Christie – Passenger to Frankfurt
• Roald Dahl – Fantastic Mr Fox
• Robertson Davies – Fifth Business
• L. Sprague de Camp
  • The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales
  • Warlocks and Warriors (ed.)
• Samuel R. Delany – The Fall of the Towers (Trilogy)
• James Dickey – Deliverance
• José Donoso – The Obscene Bird of Night (El obsceno pájaro de la noche)
• Lawrence Durrell – Nunquam
• J. G. Farrell – Troubles
• Shirley Hazzard – The Bay of Noon
• Anne Hébert – Kamouraska
• Ernest Hemingway – Islands in the Stream
• Susan Hill – I'm the King of the Castle
• Pamela Hansford Johnson – The Honours Board
• Anna Kavan – Julia and the Bazooka
• Jaan Kross – Between Three Plagues (part 1)
• Ira Levin – This Perfect Day
• H. P. Lovecraft – The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions
• John D. MacDonald – The Long Lavender Look
• Eric Malpass – Oh My Darling Daughter
• Ruth Manning-Sanders – A Book of Devils and Demons
• Yukio Mishima – The Decay of the Angel last book in The Sea of Fertility series
• Brian Moore – Fergus
• Toni Morrison – The Bluest Eye
• Larry Niven – Ringworld
• John Jay Osborn, Jr. – The Paper Chase
• Mary Renault – Fire from Heaven
• Kurban Said – Ali and Nino
• Erich Segal – Love Story
• Sidney Sheldon – The Naked Face
• Clark Ashton Smith – Other Dimensions
• Muriel Spark – The Driver's Seat
• Mary Stewart – The Crystal Cave
• Leon Uris – QB VII
• Jack Vance – The Pnume
• Gore Vidal - Two Sisters
• E. B. White – The Trumpet Of The Swan
• Patrick White – The Vivisector
• Venedikt Yerofeyev – Moscow-Petushki (Moscow to the end of the line; samizdat publication)
• Roger Zelazny – Nine Princes in Amber

New drama

• Dario Fo – Accidental Death of an Anarchist
• Welcome Msomi - uMabatha
• Terence Rattigan - A Bequest to the Nation
• Anthony Shaffer – Sleuth

Poetry

Main article: 1970 in poetry

• L. Sprague deCamp – Demons and Dinosaurs

Non-fiction

• Dee Brown – Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
• James MacGregor Burns - Roosevelt: The Soldier Of Freedom
• Henri Charrière – Papillon
• Edward De Bono – Lateral Thinking: creativity step by step
• August Derleth – Thirty Years of Arkham House, 1939-1969: A History and Bibliography
• Germaine Greer – The Female Eunuch
• Helene Hanff – 84 Charing Cross Road
• Arthur Janov – The Primal Scream
• Dumas Malone - Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801-1805
• Mahathir bin Mohamad – The Malay Dilemma
• Kate Millet – Sexual Politics
• Nancy Mitford – Frederick the Great
• Albert Speer – Inside the Third Reich
• Alvin Toffler – Future Shock

Births

• March 12 - Dave Eggers, American writer, editor, and publisher
• September 10 – Phaswane Mpe, novelist (died 2004)
• September 16 – Nick Sagan, novelist and screenwriter
• September 24 – Gemma Moraleja Paz, poet and novelist
• October 27 – Jonathan Stroud, fantasy writer
• unknown date
  • Alex Garland, novelist
  • Chris Adrian, novelist
  • Nathan Englander, short story writer

Deaths

• January 10 – Charles Olson, modernist poet, 59 (liver cancer)
• January 29 – B. H. Liddell Hart, military historian, 74
• February 2 – Bertrand Russell, philosopher, 97
• March 11 – Erle Stanley Gardner, Perry Mason author, 80
• March 29 – Vera Brittain, novelist, memoirist and poet, 76
• April 11 – John O'Hara, novelist, 65 (cardiovascular disease)
• May 12 – Nelly Sachs, Jewish German poet and dramatist, 78
• June 3 – Adrian Conan Doyle, son and literary executor of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 59
• June 7 – E. M. Forster, novelist, 91
• June 16 – Elsa Triolet, French novelist, 73
• July 15 – Eric Berne, psychiatrist and author, 60 (heart attack)
• September 1 – François Mauriac, French novelist, 84
• September 28 – John Dos Passos, novelist, 74
• November 25 – Yukio Mishima, Japanese author and rightist political activist, 45 (suicide)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Canada

• See 1970 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Michel Tournier, Le Roi des Aulnes
• Prix Médicis French: Camille Bourniquel, Sélinonte ou la Chambre impériale
• Prix Médicis International: Luigi Malerba, Saut de la mort

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen, The God Beneath the Sea
• Cholmondeley Award: Kathleen Raine, Douglas Livingstone, Edward Brathwaite
• Eric Gregory Award: Helen Frye, Paul Mills, John Mole, Brian Morse, Alan Perry, Richard Tibbitts
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Lily Powell, The Bird of Paradise
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Roy Fuller

United States

• Hugo Award: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
• Nebula Award: Larry Niven, Ringworld
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: William H. Armstrong, Sounder
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Charles Gordone, No Place To Be Somebody
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Jean Stafford, Collected Stories
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Howard, Untitled Subjects

Elsewhere

• Premio Nadal: Jesús Fernández Santos, Libro de las memorias de las cosas
• Viareggio Prize: Nello Saito, Dentro e fuori