1972 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1972.

Events

• May 22 – Cecil Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, dies at Lemmons, the home of novelists Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard on the northern edge of London, which he has been sharing with his wife and son, actors Jill Balcon and Daniel Day-Lewis, and (at weekends) Kingsley's writer son Martin Amis, amongst others.
• June 4 – Poet Joseph Brodsky is expelled from the Soviet Union.
• October 6–7 – New Staatstheater Darmstadt opened.
• October 8 – The play Sizwe Bansi is Dead is premiered at the Space Theatre (Cape Town) in South Africa before a multiracial audience. Playwright Athol Fugard directs with co-writers John Kani and Winston Ntshona in the lead roles.
• October 10 – Sir John Betjeman is appointed Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, the first knight ever to be appointed to the post.

New books

Fiction

• Dritëro Agolli – The Rise and Fall of Comrade Zylo (Shkëlqimi dhe Rënja e Shokut Zylo, published in the magazine Hosteni)
• Jorge Amado – Teresa Batista Cansada da Guerra ("Tereza Batista: Home from the Wars")
• Martin Amis – The Rachel Papers
• Isaac Asimov – The Gods Themselves
• Italo Calvino – Invisible Cities
• Taylor Caldwell – Captains and the Kings
• John Dickson Carr – The Hungry Goblin: A Victorian Detective Novel
• Angela Carter – The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman
• Agatha Christie – Elephants Can Remember
• Brian Cleeve – Tread Softly in this Place
• Michael Crichton - The Terminal Man
• Robertson Davies – The Manticore
• L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp, editors – 3000 Years of Fantasy and Science Fiction
• R. F. Delderfield – To Serve Them All My Days
• Frederick Forsyth – The Odessa File
• Günter Grass – Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke ("From the Diary of a Snail")
• Graham Greene – The Honorary Consul
• Peter Handke – A Sorrow Beyond Dreams
• James Herriot – All Creatures Great and Small
• Georgette Heyer – Lady of Quality
• George V. Higgins – The Friends of Eddie Coyle
• P. D. James – An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
• Dan Jenkins – Semi-Tough
• Thomas Keneally – The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith
• Carl Jacobi – Disclosures in Scarlet
• Halldór Laxness - Guðsgjafaþula
• Ira Levin – The Stepford Wives
• Frank Belknap Long – The Rim of the Unknown
• Robert Ludlum – The Osterman Weekend
• John D. MacDonald – The Scarlet Ruse
• David McCullough – The Great Bridge
• Barry N. Malzberg – Beyond Apollo
• Vladimir Nabokov – Transparent Things
• Kenzaburō Ōe (大江 健三郎) – The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away (みずから我が涙をぬぐいたまう日, Mizukara Waga Namida o Nugui Tamau Hi)
• Chaim Potok – My Name is Asher Lev
• Arkady and Boris Strugatsky – Roadside Picnic
• Paul Theroux – Saint Jack
• Hunter S. Thompson – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
• Irving Wallace – The Word

Children and young adults

• Richard Adams – Watership Down
• Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
• Rumer Godden
  • The Diddakoi (also Gypsy Girl)
  • The Old Woman Who Lived in a Vinegar Bottle
• Michael de Larrabeiti – The Redwater Raid
• James Marshall – George and Martha (first in series of seven)
• Graham Oakley – The Church Mouse (first in the Church Mice series of twelve)
• Mary Renault – The Persian Boy
• Marjorie W. Sharmat – Nate the Great
• Judith Viorst – Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Drama

• Alan Ayckbourn – Absurd Person Singular
• Samuel Beckett – Not I
• Hanay Geiogamah – Body Indian
• Eugène Ionesco – Macbett
• Vijay Tendulkar
  • Ghashiram Kotwal
  • Sakharam Binder

Non-fiction

• The American Museum of Natural History – An Introduction
• Jacob Bronowski – The Ascent of Man
• L. Sprague de Camp – Great Cities of the Ancient World
• L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp – Darwin and His Great Discovery'
• Carlos Castaneda – Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan
• Michael Kammen – People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization
• Nena and George O'Neill – Open Marriage: A New Life Style for Couples
• Robert Newton Peck – A Day No Pigs Would Die
• Frances Yates – The Rosicrucian Enlightenment
• John Howard Yoder – The Politics of Jesus

Births

• January 1 – Maile Meloy, American novelist and short story writer
• February 11 – Noboru Yamaguchi (山口 登), Japanese light novel and game scenario author
• August 18 – Adda Djørup, Danish poet and fiction writer
• September 6 – China Miéville, English science fiction novelist
• September 19 – Cheryl B (Cheryl Burke), American poet and spoken word artist
• Unknown dates
  • Shimon Adaf, Israeli poet and novelist
  • Rabee Jaber, Lebanese novelist
  • Marente de Moor, Dutch novelist and columnist
  • Ben Rice, English novelist

Deaths

• January 1 – Eberhard Wolfgang Möller, German playwright and poet (born 1906)
• January 7 – John Berryman, American poet (suicide, born 1914)
• February 2 – Natalie Clifford Barney, American writer and patron (born 1876)
• February 15 – Edgar Snow, American political writer (cancer, born 1905)
• March 4 – Richard Church, English poet and novelist (born 1893
• March 9 – Violet Trefusis, English writer (born 1894)
• March 11 – Fredric Brown, American genre novelist (born 1906
• March 14 – Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Italian publisher (born 1926)
• April 10 – Laurence Manning, Canadian science fiction author (born 1899)
• May 22 – Cecil Day-Lewis, Irish-born Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and (as Nicholas Blake) novelist (born 1904)
• June 24 – R. F. Delderfield, English novelist and playwright (born 1912)
• August 2 – Helen Hoyt (Helen Lyman), American poet (born 1887)
• August 17 – Alexander Vampilov, Russian dramatist (drowned fishing, born 1937)
• August 22 – Ernestine Hill, Australian travel writer (born 1899)
• September 21 – Henry de Montherlant, French essayist, novelist and dramatist (born 1895)
• September 27 – S. R. Ranganathan, Indian mathematician and librarian (born 1892)
• November 1 – Ezra Pound, American poet (born 1885)
• November 29 – Victor Bridges (Victor George de Freyne), English genre novelist, playwright and poet (born 1878)
• December 10 – Mark Van Doren, American poet, writer and critic (born 1894)
• December 13 – L. P. Hartley, English novelist (born 1895)
• December 23 – Abraham Joshua Heschel, Polish-born American theologian and rabbi (born 1907)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Heinrich Böll

Canada

• See 1972 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Jean Carrière, L'Epervier de Maheux
• Prix Médicis French: Maurice Clavel, Le Tiers des étoiles

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: John Berger, G.
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Richard Adams, Watership Down
• Cholmondeley Award: Molly Holden, Tom Raworth, Patricia Whittaker
• Eric Gregory Award: Tony Curtis, Richard Berengarten, Brian Oxley, Andrew Greig, Robin Lee, Paul Muldoon
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: John Berger, G
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Quentin Bell, Virginia Woolf

United States

• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for the novel, Eudora Welty
• Hugo Award: Philip José Farmer, To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971)
• Nebula Award: Isaac Asimov, The Gods Themselves
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Robert C. O'Brien, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Not awarded
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Wallace Stegner – Angle of Repose
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: James Wright, Collected Poems

Elsewhere

• Miles Franklin Award: Thea Astley, The Acolyte
• Premio Nadal: José María Carrascal, Groovy
• Viareggio Prize: Romano Bilenchi, Il bottone di Stalingrado