1969 in literature

Events

• February 8 – After 147 years, the last issue of The Saturday Evening Post in its original form appears in the United States.
• March 23 – German-born writer Assia Wevill, a mistress of the English poet Ted Hughes and ex-wife of the Canadian poet David Wevill, gasses herself and their daughter at her London home.
• August – "Penelope Ashe", purported author of a bestselling novel, Naked Came the Stranger, is revealed as a group of Newsday journalists.

• The first Booker-McConnell Prize for fiction is awarded to P. H. Newby for Something to Answer For.
• Pramoedya Ananta Toer begins ten years' imprisonment for his political beliefs, served on island prison colonies in Indonesia. During his sentence he composes, orally, his Buru Quartet of novels.
• The Times Literary Supplement begins using the abbreviation "TLS" on its title page.

  New books

Fiction

• Eva Alexanderson – Kontradans
• Jorge Amado – Tenda dos Milagres
• Kingsley Amis – The Green Man
• Poul Anderson – Satan's World
• William H. Armstrong – Sounder
• Penelope Ashe – Naked Came the Stranger
• Margaret Atwood – The Edible Woman
• René Barjavel – Les Chemins de Katmandou
• Ray Bradbury – I Sing the Body Electric
• Melvyn Bragg – The Hired Man
• William S. Burroughs – The Last Words of Dutch Schultz
• Louis-Ferdinand Céline – Rigadoon
• Agatha Christie – Hallowe'en Party
• Michael Crichton – The Andromeda Strain
• John Cheever – Bullet Park
• A. J. Cronin – A Pocketful of Rye
• Henry de Montherlant – Les Garçons
• L. Sprague de Camp – The Golden Wind
• Marion Eames – Y Stafell Ddirgel
• John Fowles – The French Lieutenant's Woman
• George MacDonald Fraser – Flashman
• Paul Gallico – The Poseidon Adventure
• Graham Greene – Travels with My Aunt
• Sam Greenlee – The Spook Who Sat by the Door
• Günter Grass – Local Anaesthetic
• Frank Herbert – Dune Messiah
• Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter – Conan of Cimmeria
• B. S. Johnson – The Unfortunates
• David H. Keller – The Folsom Flint and Other Curious Tales
• Derek Lambert
• * Angels in the Snow
• * The Kites of War
• Ursula Le Guin – The Left Hand of Darkness
• Elmore Leonard – The Big Bounce
• Doris Lessing – The Four-Gated City
• H. P. Lovecraft and Others – Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
• John D. MacDonald – Dress Her in Indigo
• Félicien Marceau – Creezy
• Yukio Mishima – Runaway Horses
• Michael Moorcock – Behold the Man
• C. L. Moore – Jirel of Joiry
• Vladimir Nabokov –
• V. S. Naipaul – A House for Mr Biswas
• M. T. Vasudevan Nair – Kaalam
• Patrick O'Brian – Master and Commander
• Don Pendleton – War Against The Mafia
• Chaim Potok – The Promise
• Manuel Puig – Little Painted Mouths
• Mario Puzo – The Godfather
• Ellery Queen – The Campus Murders
• Pauline Réage – Retour à Roissy
• Mordecai Richler – The Street
• Harold Robbins – The Inheritors
• Philip Roth – Portnoy's Complaint
• Gabriel Ruhumbika – Village in Uhuru
• Giorgio Scerbanenco
• *I milanesi ammazzano al sabato
• *Milano calibro 9
• Irwin Shaw – Rich Man, Poor Man
• Dag Solstad – Irr! Grønt!
• Rex Stout – Death of a Dude
• Edward Streeter – Ham Martin, Class of '17
• Jacqueline Susann – The Love Machine
• Theodore Taylor – The Cay
• Colin Thiele – Blue Fin
• Jack Vance
• *The Dirdir
• *Emphyrio
• *Servants of the Wankh
• Mario Vargas Llosa – Conversation in the Cathedral
• Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse-Five
• Charity Waciuma – Daughter of Mumbi
• Irving Wallace – The Seven Minutes
• Colin Wilson – The Philosopher's Stone
• Roger Zelazny
• *Creatures of Light and Darkness
• *Damnation Alley
• *Isle of the Dead

  Children and young people

• Eric Carle – The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• Frances Carpenter – South American Wonder Tales
• Penelope Farmer – Charlotte Sometimes
• Rumer Godden – Operation Sippacik
• Ruth Park – The Muddle-Headed Wombat on a Rainy Day
• Gary Paulsen – Mr. Tucket
• Bill Peet – Fly Homer Fly
• Barbara Sleigh – The Snowball
• William Steig – Sylvester and the Magic Pebble
• John Rowe Townsend – The Intruder
• Elfrida Vipont with Raymond Briggs – The Elephant and the Bad Baby
• Anne de Vries – Into the Darkness

  Drama

• Leilah Assunção – Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito
• Aimé Césaire – Une Tempête
• Dario Fo – Mistero Buffo
• Athol Fugard – Boesman and Lena
• Joe Orton – What the Butler Saw
• Dennis Potter – Son of Man
• Dalmiro Sáenz – Quién yo?
• David Storey – In Celebration
• Paul Zindel – Let Me Hear You Whisper

  Poetry

• James Schuyler – Freely Espousing

  Non-fiction

• Dean Acheson –
• Maya Angelou – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
• Fernand Braudel – Ecrits sur l'Histoire
• H. Rap Brown – Die Nigger Die!
• Henri Charrière – Papillon
• L. Sprague de Camp and George H. Scithers – The Conan Swordbook
• Antonia Fraser – Mary Queen of Scots
• Peter Geach – God and the Soul
• Søren Hansen and Jesper Jensen – The Little Red Schoolbook
• Anton LaVey – The Satanic Bible
• Laurie Lee – As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning
• Kate Millett – Sexual Politics
• Desmond Morris – The Human Zoo
• Harold Perkin – The Origins of Modern English Society 1780–1880
• Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull – The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong
• David Reuben – Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex*

  Births

• January 12 – David Mitchell, English novelist
• January 17 – Michael Moynihan, American journalist and publisher
• January 21 – M. K. Hobson, American speculative fiction author
• March – Jez Butterworth, English dramatist and screenwriter
• May 6 – Emmanuel Larcenet, French comics author
• May 28 – Muriel Barbery, French novelist
• May 29 – Qiu Miaojin, Korean-born novelist
• June 13 – Virginie Despentes, French writer
• July 5 – Armin Kõomägi, Estonian author and screenwriter
• August 4 – Jojo Moyes, English journalist and romantic novelist
• October 24 – Emma Donoghue, Irish-born Canadian novelist, dramatist, and academic
• November 13 – John Belluso, American dramatist
• November 28 – Hanne Ørstavik, Norwegian novelist
• November 30 – David Auburn, American dramatist

• Adrian Goldsworthy, British military historian and novelist
• John Harris, English writer, journalist and critic
• Tom McCarthy, English novelist

  Deaths

• January 11 – Richmal Crompton, English children's writer
• January 21 – Giovanni Comisso, Italian writer
• March 11 – John Wyndham, English science fiction novelist
• March 24 – Margery Fish, English gardening writer
• March 26 – John Kennedy Toole, American novelist
• March 27 – B. Traven, presumed German-born novelist
• May 4 – Osbert Sitwell, English novelist and poet
• July 24 – Witold Gombrowicz, Polish playwright and novelist
• July 27 – Vivian de Sola Pinto, English poet and memoirist
• August 14 – Leonard Woolf, English political theorist
• August 27 – Ivy Compton-Burnett, English novelist
• September 6 – Gavin Maxwell, Scottish naturalist and author
• September 17 – Greye La Spina, American dramatist and short story writer
• September 20 – Elinor Brent-Dyer, English children's writer
• September 22 – Rachel Davis Harris, African American librarian
• October 21 – Jack Kerouac, American novelist and poet

  Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Samuel Beckett

  Canada

• See 1969 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

  France

• Prix Goncourt: Félicien Marceau, Creezy
• Prix Médicis: Hélène Cixous, Dedans

  United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: P. H. Newby, Something to Answer For
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: K. M. Peyton, The Edge of the Cloud
• Cholmondeley Award: Derek Walcott, Tony Harrison
• Eric Gregory Award: Gavin Bantock, Jeremy Hooker, Jenny King, Neil Powell, Landeg E. White
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Elizabeth Bowen, Eva Trout
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Antonia Fraser, Mary Queen of Scots
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Stevie Smith

  United States

• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Tennessee Williams
• Hugo Award: John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar
• Nebula Award: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Lloyd Alexander, The High King
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Howard Sackler, The Great White Hope
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: N. Scott Momaday – House Made of Dawn
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: George Oppen: Of Being Numerous

  Elsewhere

• Miles Franklin Award: George Johnston, Clean Straw for Nothing
• Premio Nadal: Francisco García Pavón Las hermanas coloradas
• Viareggio Prize: Fulvio Tomizza, L'albero dei sogni