1984 in literature

Events

• April 4 – The narrative of George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four begins and causes widespread discussion. G. K. Chesterton's The Napoleon of Notting Hill is also set in this year.
• June 16 – Cirque du Soleil is founded in Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, by two former street performers, Guy Laliberté and Gilles Ste-Croix.
• July – Tom Wolfe's novel The Bonfire of the Vanities begins serialization in Rolling Stone.
• December 19 – Ted Hughes' appointment as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom is announced in succession to Sir John Betjeman, Philip Larkin having turned down the post.
• Prvoslav Vujčić's second poetry collection, Kastriranje vetra, written during a week's imprisonment in Tuzla for criticising the state, is banned in Yugoslavia.
• Of Mice and Men, the 1937 novel by John Steinbeck, is removed from Tennessee public schools, when the School Board Chair promises to oust all ostensibly filthy books from public school curricula and libraries.
• Redu in Belgium becomes a book town.
• Saqi Books, an independent U.K. publisher, is founded by Mai Ghoussoub.

  New books

Fiction

• Warren Adler – Random Hearts
• Kingsley Amis – Stanley and the Women
• Martin Amis – Money
• V. C. Andrews – Seeds of Yesterday
• Jeffrey Archer – First Among Equals
• Richard Bachman – Thinner
• J. G. Ballard – Empire of the Sun
• Iain Banks – The Wasp Factory
• René Barjavel – L'Enchanteur
• Julian Barnes – Flaubert's Parrot
• J. J. Benítez – Caballo de Troya
• Thomas Bernhard – Woodcutters
• J. Bernlef – Hersenschimmen
• Michael Bishop
• *One Winter in Eden
• *Who Made Stevie Crye?
• Simon Brett – A Shock to the System
• David Brin – The Practice Effect
• Anita Brookner – Hotel du Lac
• Tom Clancy – The Hunt for Red October
• Maryse Condé – Segou: les murailles de terre
• Bernard & Judy Cornwell – Fallen Angels
• Michel Déon – Je vous écris d'Italie
• Marguerite Duras – L'Amant
• Louise Erdrich – Love Medicine
• Howard Fast – The Outsider
• Leon Forrest – Two Wings to Veil My Face
• Frederick Forsyth – The Fourth Protocol
• John Gardner – Role of Honour
• William Gibson – Neuromancer
• William Golding – "The Paper Men"
• Alasdair Gray – 1982, Janine
• Kent Haruf – The Tie That Binds
• Frank Herbert – Heretics of Dune
• David Hughes – The Pork Butcher
• John Jakes – Love and War
• Stephen King, Peter Straub – The Talisman
• Russell Kirk – Watchers at the Strait Gate
• Jaan Kross – Professor Martens' Departure
• Milan Kundera – The Unbearable Lightness of Being
• Sue Limb – Up the Garden Path
• Robert Ludlum – The Aquitaine Progression
• Norman Mailer – Tough Guys Don't Dance
• Ruth Manning-Sanders – A Book of Magic Horses
• M. T. Vasudevan Nair – Randamoozham
• Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk – Sanaaq
• Robert B. Parker – Valediction
• Milorad Pavić – Dictionary of the Khazars
• Ellis Peters
• *Dead Man's Ransom
• *The Pilgrim of Hate
• Mario Puzo – The Sicilian
• Thomas Pynchon – Slow Learner: Early Stories
• Christoph Ransmayr – The Terrors of Ice and Darkness
• Pratibha Ray – Yajnaseni
• Bob Shea and Robert Anton Wilson – The Illuminatus! Trilogy
• Michael Slade – Headhunter
• Danielle Steel – Full Circle
• Neal Stephenson – The Big U
• Botho Strauß – The Young Man
• Robert Swindells – Brother in the Land
• Antonio Tabucchi – Indian Nocturne
• John Updike – The Witches of Eastwick
• Gore Vidal – Lincoln
• Tim Winton – Shallows
• Janusz Zajdel – Paradyzja

  Children and young people

• Chris Van Allsburg – The Mysteries of Harris Burdick
• Helen Cresswell – The Secret World of Polly Flint
• Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• Mem Fox – Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge
• Patricia Reilly Giff – The Beast in Ms. Rooney's Room
• Michelle Magorian – Back Home
• Bill Peet – Pamela Camel
• Dr. Seuss – The Butter Battle Book
• J. R. R. Tolkien – The Hobbit

  Drama

• Howard Barker – Scenes from an Execution
• Dario Fo –
• Michael Frayn – Benefactors
• Beth Henley – The Miss Firecracker Contest
• Elfriede Jelinek – Illness or Modern Women
• Joshua Sobol – Ghetto
• Tom Stoppard – Rough Crossing

  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 and Hugh Ford – The Women of Montparnasse, the Americans in Paris
• Roald Dahl – Boy an autobiography
• Louise Hay – You Can Heal Your Life
• Lee Iacocca – '
• Steven Levy – '
• Audre Lorde – Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
• Robin Morgan – Sisterhood Is Global
• M. Alice Ottoboni –
• 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
• E. O. Wilson – Biophilia: The Human Bond with Other Species

  Births

• April 16 – Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, American novelist
• May 9 – Ezra Klein, American journalist and columnist
• May 21 – Jackson Pearce, American young-adult novelist
• June 5 – Simon Rich, American humorist, novelist and screenwriter
• July 12 – Amanda Hocking, American fantasy novelist
• August 8 – Owen Jones, English columnist and author and commentator
• November 20 – Halley Feiffer, American playwright and actress
• December 10 – Helen Oyeyemi, English novelist and playwright

  Deaths

• February 12 – Julio Cortázar, Argentine novelist, short story writer and essayist
• February 21 – Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Russian writer, Nobel Prize laureate
• February 22 – Jessamyn West, American novelist
• March 4 – Odd Bang-Hansen, Norwegian novelist and children's writer
• March 8 – Eleanor Graham, English children's writer and editor
• March 12 – Arnold Ridley, English playwright and actor
• March 26 – Branko Ćopić, Bosnian Serb writer
• April 1 – Elizabeth Goudge, English writer
• April 15 – Alexander Trocchi, Scottish writer
• April 21
• *Marcel Janco, Romanian–Israeli artist, art theorist, essayist and poet
• *Manuel Mujica Láinez, Argentine novelist
• May 16 – Irwin Shaw, American playwright, screenwriter and novelist
• May 19 – John Betjeman, English poet laureate
• June 10 – Halide Nusret Zorlutuna, Turkish poet and novelist
• June 30 – Lillian Hellman, American playwright
• July 6 – Denys Val Baker, Welsh novelist and short story writer
• August 14 – J. B. Priestley, English novelist and playwright
• August 25 – Truman Capote, American fiction writer
• September 7 – Liam O'Flaherty, Irish novelist and short story writer
• October 31 – Eduardo De Filippo, Italian playwright
• November 6 – Gastón Suárez, Bolivian novelist and dramatist
• November 10 – Xavier Herbert, Australian novelist
• November 12 – Chester Himes, American writer
• December 4 – Ștefan Voitec, Romanian politician and journalist
• December 6 – Gray Barker, American writer on paranormal
• December 14 – Vicente Aleixandre, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate

  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
• Miles Franklin Award: Tim Winton, Shallows

  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

  Spain

• Miguel de Cervantes Prize: Ernesto Sabato

  United Kingdom

• Betty Trask Award, established by Society of Authors, Prize: Ronald Frame, Winter Journey, Clare Nonhebel, Cold Showers
• Booker Prize: Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Margaret Mahy, The Changeover
• 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