1989 in literature

List of years in literature       (table)
... 1979 .  1980 .  1981 .  1982  . 1983  . 1984  . 1985 ... 1986 1987 1988 -1989- 1990 1991 1992 ... 1993 .  1994 .  1995 .  1996  . 1997  . 1998  . 1999 ...      In poetry: 1986 1987 1988 -1989- 1990 1991 1992
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The year 1989 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• February 24 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini places a US$3 million bounty for the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie.
• December 29 - Playwright Václav Havel becomes President of Czechoslovakia.

New prose fiction

• Hanan al-Shaykh – Women of Sand and Myrrh (Misk al–ghazal)
• Martin Amis – London Fields
• Piers Anthony – Total Recall
• Clive Barker – The Great and Secret Show
• Julian Barnes - A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
• Thomas Berger - Changing the Past
• Larry Bond – Red Phoenix
• Anthony Burgess - Any Old Iron
• Nick Cave – And the Ass Saw the Angel
• Tom Clancy – Clear and Present Danger
• Mary Higgins Clark – While My Pretty One Sleeps
• Hugh Cook – The Wicked and the Witless
• Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe's Revenge and Sea Lord (aka Killer's Wake)
• Bryce Courtenay – The Power of One
• Robert Crais - Stalking the Angel
• Lindsey Davis – The Silver Pigs
• L. Sprague de Camp – The Honorable Barbarian
• L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt – The Complete Compleat Enchanter
• E. L. Doctorow - Billy Bathgate
• Katherine Dunn – Geek Love
• Umberto Eco – Foucault's Pendulum
• George Alec Effinger – A Fire in the Sun
• Ben Elton – Stark
• Ken Follett – The Pillars of the Earth
• Frederick Forsyth – The Negotiator
• Gabriel García Márquez – The General in His Labyrinth (El general en su laberinto)
• John Gardner - Licence to Kill and Win, Lose or Die
• Charles Gill - The Boozer Challenge
• John Grisham – A Time to Kill
• Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter – The Conan Chronicles
• John Irving – A Prayer for Owen Meany
• Kazuo Ishiguro – The Remains of the Day
• Stephen King – The Dark Half
• László Krasznahorkai - The Melancholy of Resistance
• John le Carré – The Russia House
• H. P. Lovecraft – The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions corrected edition
• H. P. Lovecraft and Divers Hands – Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
• Hilary Mantel - Fludd
• James A. Michener – Six Days in Havana
• Bharati Mukherjee – Jasmine
• Larry Niven – The Legacy of Heorot
• Robert B. Parker – Playmates
• Giuseppe Pontiggia – La grande sera
• Terry Pratchett - Guards! Guards! and Pyramids
• Paul Quarrington – Whale Music
• Mordecai Richler – Solomon Gursky Was Here
• José Saramago – The History of the Siege of Lisbon
• Sidney Sheldon – The Sands of Time
• Dan Simmons – Hyperion
• Danielle Steel - Daddy and Star
• Bruce Sterling – Crystal Express
• Alexander Stuart – The War Zone
• Amy Tan – The Joy Luck Club
• Shashi Tharoor – The Great Indian Novel
• Rose Tremain – Restoration
• Andrew Vachss – Hard Candy
• Alice Walker – The Temple of My Familiar
• Roger Zelazny - Frost & Fire and Knight of Shadows

Horror fiction

• John Skipp and Craig Spector - Book of the Dead
• Joe R. Lansdale - By Bizarre Hands

Children's and young adults' fiction

• Anne Fine - Bill's New Frock
• Yoshi Kogo - Big Al
• David McKee - Elmer

Drama

• Herman Brusselmans & Tom Lanoye - De Canadese muur
• Jim Cartwright - Two
• Michael Wall - Amongst Barbarians
• Keith Waterhouse - Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell

Poetry

• Simon Armitage - Zoom!
• Paul Fleischman - Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices
• David Lehman - The Best American Poetry 1989

Non-fiction

• Gisela Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg - Angst und Vorurteil
• Stephen R. Covey - The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
• Cynthia Enloe - Bananas, Beaches and Bases
• Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon - Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony
• Tim Jeal - Baden-Powell
• Bob Kane and Tom Andrae - Batman and Me
• John Keegan - The Face of Battle
• Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson - And Their Children After Them
• Peter Mayle - A Year in Provence
• Ann Moir and David Jessel – Brain Sex
• New Revised Standard Version of the Bible
• Michael Palin - Around the World in 80 Days
• Gilda Radner - It's Always Something
• Dan Topolski and Patrick Robinson - True Blue: The Oxford Boat Race Mutiny
• V. Vale and Andrea Juno - Modern Primitives
• Andy Warhole and Pat Hackett - The Andy Warhol Diaries
• Jeremy Wilson - Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of T.E. Lawrence
• Bob Wood - Big Ten Country

Deaths

• January 8 - Bruce Chatwin, travel writer and novelist
• February 3 - John Cassavetes, actor, director, writer
• March 14 - Edward Abbey, essayist
• March 27 - Malcolm Cowley, novelist and poet
• April 19 - Daphne du Maurier, writer
• April 25 - Norma Klein, author
• May 19 - C. L. R. James, journalist
• August 23 - R. D. Laing, psychologist and author
• August 26 - Irving Stone, novelist
• September 4 - Georges Simenon, Maigret author
• September 4 - Sir Ronald Syme, Classicist
• September 15 - Robert Penn Warren, poet and novelist
• September 30 - Horace Alexander, pacifist writer, 100
• October 13 - Cesare Zavattini, screenwriter
• December 19 - Stella Gibbons, novelist
• December 22 - Samuel Beckett, writer
• December 26 - Paul Jennings, humorist
• December - George Selden

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Camilo José Cela

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Mandy Sayer, Mood Indigo
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Gwen Harwood, Bone Scan
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: John Tranter, Under Berlin
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Alex Skovron, The Re-arrangement

Canada

• See 1989 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Jean Vautrin, Un grand pas vers le Bon Dieu
• Prix Décembre: Guy Dupré, Les Manoeuvres d'automne
• Prix Médicis French: Serge Doubrovsky, Le Livre brisé
• Prix Médicis International: Alvaro Mutis, La Neige de l'amiral

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Anne Fine, Goggle-Eyes
• Cholmondeley Award: Peter Didsbury, Douglas Dunn, E.J. Scovell
• Eric Gregory Award: Gerard Woodward, David Morley, Katrina Porteous, Paul Henry
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: James Kelman, A Disaffection
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Ian Gibson, Federico Garcia Lorca: A Life
• Newdigate prize: Jane Griffiths
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Allen Curnow
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Richard Holmes, Coleridge: Early Visions
• The Sunday Express Book of the Year: Rose Tremain, Restoration

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Nancy Vieira Couto, The Face in the Water
• Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Anthony Hecht
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Fiction, Isaac Bashevis Singer
• Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Jorie Graham, "Spring"
• Compton Crook Award: Elizabeth Moon, Sheepfarmer's Daughter
• Frost Medal: Gwendolyn Brooks
• Nebula Award: Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, The Healer's War
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Paul Fleischman, Joyful Noise
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Wendy Wasserstein, The Heidi Chronicles
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Anne Tyler - Breathing Lessons
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Wilbur: New and Collected Poems

Japan

• Falcon Award (Maltese Falcon Society of Japan): Andrew Vachss for Strega
• The Japan Fantasy Novel Award is established, with Ken'ichi Sakemi winning with his novel Kōkyū Shōsetsu.