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The year 1984 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• The book Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is widely read.
• Of Mice and Men, the novel by John Steinbeck, was removed from Tennessee public schools when the School Board Chair promised to remove all "filthy books" from public school curricula and libraries. ^[1]
• Ted Hughes is made the British Poet Laureate

New books

• Warren Adler - Random Hearts
• Kingsley Amis - Stanley and the Women
• Martin Amis - Money
• Jeffrey Archer - First Among Equals
• Richard Bachman - Thinner (nom de plume for Stephen King)
• J. G. Ballard - Empire of the Sun
• Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory
• Julian Barnes - Flaubert's Parrot
• J. J. Benitez - Caballo de Troya
• Michael Bishop - One Winter in Eden and Who Made Stevie Crye?
• Simon Brett - A Shock to the System
• David Brin - The Practice Effect
• Anita Brookner - Hotel du Lac
• Sandra Cisneros - The House on Mango Street
• Tom Clancy - The Hunt for Red October
• Bernard & Judy Cornwell (as Susannah Kells) - Fallen Angels
• Marguerite Duras - L'Amant
• Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird -Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (comic book)
• Louise Erdrich - Love Medicine
• Howard Fast - The Outsider
• Frederick Forsyth - The Fourth Protocol
• John Gardner - Role of Honour
• William Gibson - Neuromancer
• Kent Haruf - The Tie That Binds
• Frank Herbert - Heretics of Dune
• John Jakes - Love and War
• Stephen King, Peter Straub - The Talisman
• Russell Kirk - Watchers at the Strait Gate
• Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being
• Robert Ludlum - The Aquitaine Progression
• Ruth Manning-Sanders - A Book of Magic Horses
• Robert B. Parker - Valediction
• Mario Puzo - The Sicilian
• Thomas Pynchon - Slow Learner: Early Stories
• Dr. Seuss - The Butter Battle Book
• Bob Shea and Robert Anton Wilson - The Illuminatus! Trilogy (collected edition)
• Michael Slade - Headhunter
• Danielle Steel - Full Circle
• Neal Stephenson - The Big U (debut novel)
• Robert Swindells - Brother in the Land
• John Updike - The Witches of Eastwick
• Gore Vidal - Lincoln
• Janusz Zajdel - Paradyzja

New drama

• Howard Barker - Scenes from an Execution
• Dario Fo - Elizabeth: Almost by Chance a Woman
• Beth Henley - The Miss Firecracker Contest
• Elfriede Jelinek - Krankheit oder Moderne Frauen
• David Mamet - Glengarry Glen Ross

Poetry

• John Ashbery - A Wave
• Louise Erdrich - Jacklight
• Christopher Gilbert - Across the Mutual Landscape
• Paulette Jiles - Celestial Navigation
• Sharon Olds - The Dead and the Living

Non-fiction

• Morrill Cody & Hugh Ford - The Women of Montparnasse, the Americans in Paris.
• Roald Dahl - Boy an autobiography
• Lee Iacocca - Iacocca: An Autobiography.
• Steven Levy - Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution.
• Derek Parfit - Reasons and Persons.
• Joan Peters - From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine.
• Herbert Jay Stern - Judgment in Berlin.

Births

Deaths

• February 22 - Jessamyn West, writer
• July 6 - Denys Val Baker, Welsh writer (b. 1917)
• August 25 - Truman Capote, American writer (b. 1924)

Awards

• Nobel Prize in Literature: Jaroslav Seifert

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Kate Grenville, Lilian's Story
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Les Murray, The People's Other World

Canada

• See 1984 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Marguerite Duras, L'Amant
• Prix Médicis French: Bernard-Henri Lévy, Le Diable en tête
• Prix Médicis International: Elsa Morante, Aracoeli

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac
• Cholmondeley Award: Michael Baldwin, Michael Hofmann, Carol Rumens
• Eric Gregory Award: Martyn Crucefix, Mick Imlah, Jamie McKendrick, Bill Smith, Carol Ann Duffy, Christopher Meredith, Peter Armstrong, Iain Bamforth
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: J. G. Ballard, Empire of the Sun, and Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Lyndall Gordon, Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life
• Whitbread Best Book Award: James Buchan, A Parish of Rich Women

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Arthur Smith, Elegy on Independence Day
• Frost Medal: Jack Stadler
• Nebula Award: William Gibson, Neuromancer
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Beverly Cleary, Dear Mr. Henshaw
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: David Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: William J. Kennedy - Ironweed
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Mary Oliver: American Primitive

Elsewhere

• Premio Nadal: José de Tomás García - La otra orilla de la droga

References