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The year 1978 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, a humorous award given annually to books with unusual titles is created. The first winner was Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice.

New books

• Alan Dean Foster - Splinter of the Mind's Eye
• John L. Parker - Once a Runner
• Kingsley Amis - Jake's Thing
• Martin Amis - Success
• Richard Bach - Illusions
• Beryl Bainbridge - Young Adolf
• Anthony Burgess - 1985
• Taylor Caldwell - Bright Flows The River
• Chantal Chawaf - Rougeâtre
• John Cheever - The Stories of John Cheever
• Brian Cleeve - Judith
• Mary Elizabeth Counselman - Half in Shadow
• L. Sprague de Camp
  • The Best of L. Sprague de Camp
  • The Great Fetish
• L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter and Björn Nyberg - Conan the Swordsman
• Samuel R. Delany - Empire: A Visual Novel
• Don DeLillo - Running Dogs
• Phyllis Eisenstein - Born to Exile
• J. G. Farrell - The Singapore Grip
• Howard Fast - Second Generation
• Ken Follett - Eye of the Needle
• Ernest J. Gaines - In My Father's House
• Günter Grass - Die Flunder - (The Flounder)
• Graham Greene - The Human Factor
• Harry Harrison - The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You
• John Irving - The World According to Garp
• Marshall Jevons - Murder at the Margin
• Ismail Kadare - Ura Me Tri Harqe (The Three-Arched Bridge)
• Stephen King - The Stand
• Stephen King - Night Shift (collection of short stories, including Children of the Corn)
• Christopher Koch - The Year of Living Dangerously
• Judith Krantz - Scruples
• Madeleine L'Engle - A Swiftly Tilting Planet
• Robert Ludlum - The Holcroft Covenant
• John D. MacDonald - The Empty Copper Sea
• Ian MacClennan - Billy Bobby
• David Malouf - An Imaginary Life
• Ian McEwan - The Cement Garden
• James A. Michener - Chesapeake
• Alice Munro - Beggar Maid
• Tim O'Brien - Going After Cacciato
• Robert B. Parker - The Judas Goat
• Elizabeth Peters - Street of the Five Moons
• Belva Plain - Evergreen
• Mario Puzo - Fools Die
• Ruth Rendell - A Sleeping Life
• Hubert Selby Jr. - Requiem for a Dream
• Whitley Strieber - The Wolfen
• Thomas Sullivan - Diapason
• Rosemary Sutcliff - Song for a Dark Queen
• John Updike - Coup
• Philip Van Rensselaer - That Vanderbilt Woman
• Herman Wouk - War and Remembrance
• Richard Yates -A Good School
• Frank Yerby - Hail the Conquering Hero
• Roger Zelazny - The Courts of Chaos

New drama

• David Hare - Plenty
• Ira Levin - Deathtrap
• Mary O'Malley - Once a Catholic

Poetry

• Robert Minhinnick - A Thread in the Maze
• John Tripp - Collected Poems

Non-fiction

• Roger Caron - Go-Boy! Memories of a Life Behind Bars
• Lord David Cecil - A Portrait of Jane Austen
• Charlotte Chandler - Hello, I Must Be Going!
• Christina Crawford - Mommie Dearest
• Gerald Durrell - The Garden of the Gods
• John Gall - Systemantics
• H. R. Haldeman - The Ends of Power
• Mollie Katzen - Moosewood Cookbook
• Richard Nixon - The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
• David Rorvik - In His Image: The Cloning of a Man

Births

• June 26 - Eric Shapiro, novelist
• Ju;y 23 - Lauren Groff, author
• date unknown
  • David Llewellyn, screenwriter
  • Rachel Trezise, novelist and short story writer

Deaths

• January 12 - Robert Harbin, author of many books on origami
• March 1 - Paul Scott, Raj Quartet author
• March 24 - Leigh Brackett, science fiction writer
• April 14 - F. R. Leavis, literary critic
• May 1 - Sylvia Townsend Warner, poet and novelist
• May 12 - Louis Zukofsky, modernist poet
• September 15 - Edmund Crispin, crime writer
• September 28 - Pope John Paul I, author of Illustrissimi under his real name of Albino Luciani
• November 15 - Margaret Mead, anthropologist and author
• date unknown - Walter C. Alvarez, medical author

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Isaac Bashevis Singer
• Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year is first awarded. The winner is Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice.

Canada

• See 1978 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Patrick Modiano, Rue des boutiques obscures
• Prix Médicis French: Georges Perec, La vie mode d'emploi
• Prix Médicis International: Aleksandr Zinovyev, L’Avenir radieux - Russia

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea
• Cholmondeley Award: Christopher Hope, Leslie Norris, Peter Reading, D.M. Thomas, R.S. Thomas
• Eric Gregory Award: Ciaran Carson, Peter Denman, Christopher Reid, Paul Wilkins, Martyn A. Ford, James Sutherland-Smith
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Maurice Gee, Plumb
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Robert Gittings, The Older Hardy

United States

• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Fiction, Peter Taylor
• Nebula Award: Vonda McIntyre, Dreamsnake
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Donald L. Coburn, The Gin Game
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: James Alan McPherson, Elbow Room
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Howard Nemerov, Collected Poems

Elsewhere

• Premio Nadal: Germán Sánchez Espeso, Narciso
• Viareggio Prize: Antonio Altomonte, Dopo il presidente