1975 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1975.

Events

January 1 – English-born comic writer P. G. Wodehouse is awarded a knighthood,^[1] six weeks before his death in the United States.
January – Colin Dexter's detective novel Last Bus to Woodstock, introducing his Oxford police officer Inspector Morse, is published.
April 23 – Harold Pinter's play No Man's Land is premièred by the National Theatre company at The Old Vic theatre in London directed by Peter Hall and starring Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson.
April 28 – Harold Pinter leaves his first wife, the actress Vivien Merchant, having begun an affair with the married biographer Lady Antonia Fraser on January 8.
August 12 – With the 20-year time limit stipulated by Thomas Mann at his death having expired, sealed packets containing 32 of the author's notebooks are opened in Zürich, Switzerland.
Writing under the pseudonym of "Émile Ajar", author Romain Gary becomes the only person to ever win the Prix Goncourt twice.
Radical Australian poet Dorothy Hewett publishes her collection Rapunzel in Suburbia, triggering a successful libel action by her ex-husband.^[2]^[3]
Hearing Secret Harmonies, the twelfth and final novel of the A Dance to the Music of Time duodecalogy (begun in 1951) by Anthony Powell is published.
French literary critic Hélène Cixous coins the term Écriture féminine in her article "Le rire de la méduse".^[4]
Milan Kundera emigrates to France.
The Petrarca-Preis is founded by Hubert Burda.

January 15 – Sydney Goodsir Smith, Scottish poet, dramatist and novelist (heart attack, born 1915)
February 14
- Sir Julian Huxley, English biologist and author (born 1887)
- Sir P. G. Wodehouse, English-born comic novelist (born 1881)
February 20 – Ivan Sokolov-Mikitov, Russian author (born 1882)
March 3 – T. H. Parry-Williams, Welsh poet (born 1887)
March 7 – Kate Seredy, Hungarian-born American children's writer and illustrator (born 1899)
March 13 – Ivo Andrić, Serbo-Croatian novelist and Nobel laureate (born 1892)
May 21 – A. H. Dodd, Welsh historian (born 1891)
June 8 – Murray Leinster (William Fitzgerald Jenkins), American science fiction writer (born 1896)
September 20 – Saint-John Perse (Alexis Leger), French poet and Nobel laureate (born 1887)
October 5 – Lady Constance Malleson, Irish actress and writer (born 1895)
October 22 – Arnold J. Toynbee, English historian (born 1889)
November 13 – R. C. Sherriff, English dramatist and novelist (born 1896)
November 19 – Elizabeth Taylor, English novelist (cancer, born 1912)
November 27 – Ross McWhirter, English sports journalist and joint compiler of Guinness Book of Records (assassinated, born 1925)^[5]
December 4 – Hannah Arendt, German-American philosopher (born 1906)
December 7 – Thornton Wilder, American novelist and dramatist (born 1897)

See 1975 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

Prix Goncourt: Romain Gary as Emile Ajar – La vie devant soi
Prix Médicis French: Jacques Almira, Le Voyage à Naucratis
Prix Médicis International: Steven Millhauser, La Vie trop brève d'Edwin Mulhouse – United States