1971 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1971.

Events

• March 25–December 14 – 1971 killing of Bengali intellectuals peaks.
• April 21 – The 13th century Codex Regius is returned from Denmark to Iceland under naval escort.
• 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, the origin of Project Gutenberg.^[1]
• July 14 – Simon Gray's play Butley is first performed 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 Waltz by Gerda Charles wins the UK's first Whitbread Novel of the Year Award. Geoffrey Hill wins the poetry prize for Mercian Hymns and Michael Meyer in the biography category for Henrik Ibsen.^[2]
• 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.
• December 24 – Popular Dutch writer and broadcaster Godfried Bomans is buried in the Sint-Adelbertskerkhof (Saint Adelbert Cemetery) in Bloemendaal, two days after his death from a heart attack.

New books

Births

• January 16 – Helen Darville, Australian novelist
• January 25 – Philip Coppens, Belgian journalist and author (died 2012)
• February 3 – Sarah Kane, English playwright (died 1999)
• March 13 – Viet Thanh Nguyen, Vietnamese-born fiction writer
• March 29 – José Luis Rodríguez Pittí, Panamanian writer and photographer
• May 28 – Richard Gunn, English journalist and motoring writer
• May 9 – Dan Chiasson, American poet, critic and journalist
• July 17 – Cory Doctorow, Canadian science fiction writer
• July 22 – Akhil Sharma, Indian novelist
• September 3 – Kiran Desai, Indian novelist
• November 5 – Rana Dasgupta, English-born Indian novelist
• December 19 – Tristan Egolf, American novelist and activist (died 2005)
• Unknown dates
  • Diana Evans, English novelist of Nigerian extraction
  • Petina Gappah, Zimbabwean-born fiction writer
  • Mohsin Hamid, Pakistani-born fiction writer
  • Sophie Hannah, English poet and novelist

Deaths

• January 24 – St. John Greer Ervine, Irish-born dramatist (born 1883)
• March 5 – Allan Nevins, American journalist and historian (born 1890)
• March 7 – Stevie Smith (Florence Margaret Smith), English poet and novelist (born 1902)
• March 21 – Kyūya Fukada (深田 久弥), Japanese writer and mountaineer (born 1903)
• March 23 – Simon Vestdijk, Dutch writer (born 1898)
• April 10 – André Billy, French novelist (born 1882)
• May 19 – Ogden Nash, American poet and humorist (born 1902)
• May 20 – Waldo Williams, Welsh-language poet (born 1904)
• June 1 – Reinhold Niebuhr, American theologian (born 1892)
• June 4 – György Lukács (György Bernát Löwinger), Hungarian philosopher and critic (born 1885)
• June 5 – Clifford Dyment, English poet (born 1914)
• June 6 – Edward Andrade, English writer, poet and physicist (born 1887)
• July 4 – August Derleth, American writer and anthologist (heart attack, born 1909)
• July 7 – Claude Gauvreau, Québécois Canadian poet and dramatist (born 1925)
• July 27 – Jacques Lusseyran, French author and Resistance fighter (car crash, born 1924)
• August 30 – Peter Fleming, English travel writer and traveler (born 1907)
• October 13 – János Kemény, American-born Hungarian writer and editor (born 1903)
• October 21 – Naoya Shiga, Japanese novelist (pneumonia, born 1883)
• October 25 – Philip Wylie, American novelist and non-fiction writer (born 1902)
• November – Lucia Mantu, Romanian writer (born 1888)
• November 1 – Gertrud von Le Fort, German novelist, poet and essayist (born 1876)
• November 10 – Walter Van Tilburg Clark, American novelist (cancer, born 1909)
• November 11 – A. P. Herbert, English humorist, novelist and politician (born 1890)
• December 5 – Gaito Gazdanov, Russian-born novelist (born 1903)
• December 22 – Godfried Bomans, Dutch writer and broadcaster (heart attack, born 1913)
• December 25 – S. Foster Damon, American critic and poet (born 1893)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Pablo Neruda

References