istoryworld
Fiction timeline
Canadian novelist Robertson Davies completes his semi-autobiographical Deptford Trilogy
Steven Spielberg writes and directs an inflential science fiction movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind
US author John Irving has wide success with his novel The World According to Garp
Iris Murdoch publishes The Sea, the Sea, and wins the 1978 Booker Prize
Douglas Adams creates Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as a science fiction comedy series for BBC's Radio 4
British author Ian McEwan publishes his first novel, The Cement Garden
Italian academic Umberto Eco publishes The Name of the Rose, a medieval murder mystery
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
Australian novelist Thomas Keneally publishes Schindler's Ark and wins the Booker Prize
South African novelist J.M. Coetzee publishes The Life and Times of Michael K, and wins the Booker Prize
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
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
Ayatollah Khomeini declares a fatwa against Salman Rushdie for his Satanic Verses
Australian author Peter Carey's novel Oscar and Lucinda wins the Booker Prize
Canadian poet and novelist Michael Ondaatje publishes The English Patient
Regeneration is the first volume of English author Pat Barker's trilogy of novels set during World War I
US author Jane Smiley retells the Lear story in A Thousand Acres
