istoryworld
Events relating to literature
Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children uses the moment of India's independence to launch an adventure in magic realism
English author Anita Brookner publishes her first novel, A Start in Life
Chilean author Isabel Allende publishes her first novel, The House of the Spirits
Little Shop of Horrors, by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, opens in New York
Michael Frayn's farce Noises Off opens in London's West end
Australian novelist Thomas Keneally publishes Schindler's Ark and wins the Booker Prize
British economist Nicholas Kaldor attacks monetarism in The Economic Consequences of Mrs Thatcher
Ronald Harwood's play The Dresser is partly inspired by the British actor Donald Wolfit
South African novelist J.M. Coetzee publishes The Life and Times of Michael K, and wins the Booker Prize
US poet Robert Pinsky publishes an acclaimed verse translation, The Inferno of Dante
Czech novelist Milan Kundera publishes The Unbearable Lightness of Being, in the tradition of magic realism
English author Julian Barnes publishes a multi-faceted literary novel, Flaubert's Parrot
Peter Carey publishes Illywhacker, a novel narrated by a 139-year-old Australian
US author Don DeLillo publishes a novel of weird disasters, White Noise
Gabriel García Márquez publishes Love in a Time of Cholera, a novel about love rekindled after five decades
Antiguan author Jamaica Kincaid publishes her first novel, Annie John
British Rasta poet Benjamin Zephaniah publishes his second collection as The Dread Affair
English poets John Fuller and James Fenton collaborate in a volume of satirical poems, Partingtime Hall
Talking Heads, a series of dramatic monologues by English author Alan Bennett, is broadcast on British TV
Timberlake Wertenbaker bases her play Our Country's Good on Thomas Keneally's novel The Playmaker
US author Toni Morrison publishes her novel Beloved, loosely based on a real incident among freed slaves after the Civil War
US author Tom Wolfe gives a bleak view of contemporary New York in his novel The Bonfire of the Vanities
Robert Hughes describes the penal system of colonial Australia in The Fatal Shore
Ayatollah Khomeini declares a fatwa against Salman Rushdie for his Satanic Verses
British physicist Stephen Hawking explains the cosmos for the general reader in A Brief History of Time: from the Big Bang to Black Holes
