istoryworld
Events relating to literature
Irish poet Seamus Heaney wins critical acclaim for Death of a Naturalist, his first volume containing more than a few poems
After a long period of obscurity, Wide Sargasso Sea brings novelist Jean Rhys back into the literary limelight
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, by Tom Stoppard, is produced at the Edinburgh Festival
US author Susan Sontag publishes her first collection of essays, Against Interpretation
Flann O'Brien's novel The Third Policeman has a great success when published posthumously
US poet Anne Sexton publishes Live or Die, a collection containing a poem to her dead friend Sylvia Plath
Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez publishes a classic of magic realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude
English author Angela Carter wins recognition with her quirky second novel, The Magic Toyshop
English playwright Alan Ayckbourn has his first success with Relatively Speaking
Three young Liverpool poets publish a shared anthology under the title The Mersey Sound
A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, by English dramatist Peter Nichols, has its premiere in London
US author William Styron's novel The Confessions of Nat Turner describes a historical slave revolt in 1831
Ezra Pound publishes his last collection of cantos, Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX - CXVII
Norman Mailer publishes The Armies of the Night, based on his experiences on an anti-Vietnam demonstration in Washington in October 1967
English biographer Michael Holroyd completes his two-volume life of Lytton Strachey
Gore Vidal publishes Myra Breckenridge, featuring a lively transsexual as the central character
Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel Cancer Ward is smuggled to New York for publication
English novelist John Fowles publishes The French Lieutenant's Woman, set in Lyme Regis in the 1860s
US novelist Philip Roth publishes Portnoy's Complaint, a monologue in which the hero gives his psychoanalyst a frank description of his sexual frustrations
Space-traveller Billy Pilgrim suffers horrors in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five
Canadian author Margaret Atwood publishes her first novel, The Edible Woman
US author Maya Angelou publishes her autobiographical first novel, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Australian author David Malouf is first published as a poet, with his collection Bicycle and Other Poems
Australian feminist Germaine Greer publishes The Female Eunuch as a wake-up call to women
Italian playwright Dario Fo's black comedy Accidental Death of an Anarchist has its premiere in Milan
