1986 in literature

• April 29 – A major fire at Los Angeles Public Library caused by arson destroys 400,000 volumes. • July 21 – Michael Grade, Controller of BBC1, axes plans to televise Ian Curteis's The Falklands Play. • September 29 – Bloomsbury Publishing is set up in London by Nigel Newton. • October 9 – The Phantom of the Opera, having been the longest running Broadway show ever, opens at Her Majesty's Theatre in London. • December 19 – The Soviet dissident author Andrei Sakharov is allowed to return to Moscow after six years' internal exile. ==New books==

Fiction • Kingsley Amis – The Old Devils • V. C. Andrews – Garden of Shadows • Piers Anthony – Ghost • Jeffrey Archer – A Matter of Honour • James Axler – Pilgrimage to Hell and Red Holocaust • Iain Banks – The Bridge • Thomas Bernhard – Extinction • Orson Scott Card – Speaker for the Dead • Tom Clancy – Red Storm Rising • Arthur C. Clarke – The Songs of Distant Earth • James Clavell – Whirlwind • Jackie Collins – Hollywood Husbands • Pat Conroy – The Prince of Tides • Bernard Cornwell – ''Sharpe's Regiment'' • Marguerite Duras – Blue Eyes, Black Hair • James Ellroy – Silent Terror • Peter Fox – Downtime • John Gardner – Nobody Lives For Ever • Peter Handke – Repetition • Ernest Hemingway - The Garden of Eden • Carl Hiaasen – Tourist Season • Kazuo Ishiguro – An Artist of the Floating World • Brian Jacques – Redwall • Stephen King – It • Judith Krantz – ''I'll Take Manhattan'' • Ágota Kristóf – The Notebook • Louis L'Amour – Last of the Breed • Joe R. Lansdale – Dead in the West • John le Carré – A Perfect Spy • David Leavitt – The Lost Language of Cranes • Tanith Lee – Dreams of Dark and Light: The Great Short Fiction of Tanith Lee • Gordon Lish – Dear Mr. Capote • H. P. Lovecraft – Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (corrected edition) • Robert Ludlum – The Bourne Supremacy • Amin Maalouf – Leo Africanus • Allan Massie – Augustus (first in the Roman series) • Frank Miller – Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (graphic novel) • Robert Munsch – Love You Forever • Patrick O'Brian – The Reverse of the Medal • Ellis Peters • The Raven in the Foregate • The Rose Rent • Roger Zelazny – Blood of Amber Children and young people • Janet and Allan Ahlberg – The Jolly Postman • Chris Van Allsburg – The Stranger • Tony Bradman – Dilly the Dinosaur (first in the eponymous series of 22 books) • Steven Brust (with Alan Lee) – Brokedown Palace • Robert J. Burch – Queenie Peavy • Joy Cowley • (with Jan van der Voo) – Turnips For Dinner • (with Martin Bailey) – ''The King's Pudding'' • Crescent Dragonwagon – Half a Moon and One Whole Star • Jill Eggleton (with Kelvin Hawley) – Cat and Mouse • Berniece T. Hiser – The Adventure of Charlie and His Wheat-Straw Hat • Diana Wynne Jones – ''Howl's Moving Castle'' • Michael de Larrabeiti • The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis • The Provençal Tales • Arnold Lobel – The Random House Book of Mother Goose (in verse) • Patricia McKissack – Flossie & the Fox • Robert Munsch – Love You Forever • Jill Murphy – ''Five Minutes' Peace (first in The Large Family'' series) • Jenny Nimmo – The Snow Spider (first in The Magician Trilogy) • Bill Peet – Zella, Zack, and Zodiac • Claude Ponti – ''Adele's Album'' • Alison Prince – The Type One Super Robot • Gillian Rubinstein – Space Demons Drama • Caryl Churchill and David Lan – A Mouthful of Birds • Nick Darke – The Dead Monkey • Tomson Highway – The Rez Sisters • Chinu Modi – Ashwamedh • Willy Russell – Shirley Valentine • Arvo Salo – Vallan miehet • Tom Stoppard – Dalliance (based on a work by Arthur Schnitzler) Poetry • Kama Sywor Kamanda – Chants de brumes (Songs of twilight) Non-fiction • Dave Stieb (with Kevin Boland) - ''Tomorrow I'll be Perfect'' • Martin Amis – The Moronic Inferno: And Other Visits to America • Bernard Bailyn – Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution • Frank Barlow – Thomas Becket • Marjorie Chibnall – Anglo-Norman England 1066–1166 • Richard Dawkins – The Blind Watchmaker • Karlheinz Deschner – Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums (Criminal History of Christianity) • Adrian Edmondson et al. – How to be a Complete Bastard • Sita Ram Goel – History of Hindu–Christian Encounters, AD 304 to 1996 • Temple Grandin (with Margaret Scariano) – Emergence: Labeled Autistic • Patience Gray – Honey from a Weed (cookery) • Robert Irwin – The Middle East in the Middle Ages: The Early Mamlúk Sultanate 1250–1382 • Kumari Jayawardena – Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World • Mark Mathabane – Kaffir Boy • Farley Mowat – My Discovery of America • Harvey Pekar – American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar (graphic autobiography) • Marc Reisner – Cadillac Desert • Richard Rhodes – The Making of the Atomic Bomb • Jonathan Riley-Smith – The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading • Roger Scruton – Sexual Desire: A Philosophical Investigation • Art Spiegelman – ''Maus: A Survivor's Tale (I: My Father Bleeds History)'' (graphic biography/autobiography) • Jean Vercoutter – The Search for Ancient Egypt • Mary Wilson – Dreamgirl: My Life As a Supreme ==Births==

• January 24 - Aimee Carter, American young-adult fiction writer • June 6 - Rachelle Dekker, American science-fiction writer • July 3 – Chris Bush, English playwright, artistic director and comedian • unknown dates • Caroline Bird, English poet and dramatist • Chigozie Obioma, Nigerian novelist ==Deaths==

• January 1 – Lord David Cecil, English critic and biographer (born 1902) • January 4 – Christopher Isherwood, English-born novelist (born 1904) • January 7 • P. D. Eastman, American author and illustrator (born 1909) • Juan Rulfo, Mexican writer, screenwriter and photographer (born 1917) • January 9 – W. S. Graham, Scottish poet (born 1918) • January 24 – L. Ron Hubbard, American science fiction writer, founder of Scientology (born 1911) • January 26 – Nicholas Moore, English poet (born 1911) • February 4 – Phyllis Shand Allfrey, Dominican writer (born 1908) • February 9 – Dora Oake Russell, Newfoundland writer, diarist and journalist (born 1912) • February 11 – Frank Herbert, American science fiction novelist (born 1920) • February 27 – Nancy Brysson Morrison, Scottish novelist (born 1903) • February 28 – Edith Ditmas, English archivist, historian and writer (born 1896) • March 4 • Ding Ling, Chinese fiction writer (born 1904) • Elizabeth Smart, Canadian poet and novelist (born 1913) • March 15 – Pandelis Prevelakis, Greek novelist, poet, dramatist and essayist (born 1909) • March 18 – Bernard Malamud, American novelist (born 1914) • April 12 – Valentin Kataev, Russian novelist and dramatist (born 1897) • April 14 • Simone de Beauvoir, French philosopher and feminist writer (born 1908) • Jean Genet, French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist and political activist (born 1910) • April 17 – Bessie Head, Botswanan fiction writer (born 1937) • April 22 – Mircea Eliade, Romanian historian, philosopher and novelist (born 1907) • May 15 – Theodore H. White, American journalist, historian and novelist (born 1915) • June 14 – Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer (born 1899) • July 16 – Stephen Coulter, English writer (born 1914) • August 1 – Lena Kennedy, English romantic novelist (born 1914) • August 3 – Beryl Markham, English-born Kenyan aviator and author (born 1902) • August 18 – Vivian Stuart, English novelist (born 1914) • August 20 – Milton Acorn, Canadian poet, writer and playwright (born 1923) • September 11 – Noel Streatfeild, English novelist and children's writer (born 1895) • October 28 – John Braine, English novelist (born 1922) • December 17 – J. F. Hendry, Scottish poet (born 1912) • December 19 – V. C. Andrews, American novelist (born 1923) • December 28 – John D. MacDonald, American novelist and short story writer (born 1916) ==Awards== • Nobel Prize for Literature: Wole Soyinka Australia • The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Robin Walton, Glace Fruits • C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Rhyll McMaster, Washing the Money and John A. Scott, St. Clair • Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Robert Gray Selected Poems 1963–83 • Mary Gilmore Prize: Stephen Williams, A Crowd of Voices • Miles Franklin Award: Elizabeth Jolley, The Well Canada • See 1986 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards. France • Prix Goncourt: Michel Host, Valet de nuit • Prix Médicis French: Pierre Combescot, Les Funérailles de la Sardine • Prix Médicis International: John Hawkes, Aventures dans le commerce des peaux en Alaska United Kingdom • Booker Prize: Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils • Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Berlie Doherty, Granny Was a Buffer Girl • Cholmondeley Award: Lawrence Durrell, James Fenton, Selima Hill • Eric Gregory Award: Mick North, Lachlan Mackinnon, Oliver Reynolds, Stephen Romer • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Jenny Joseph, Persephone • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: D. Felicitas Corrigan, Helen Waddell • Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Norman MacCaig • Whitbread Best Book Award: Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World United States • Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Robley Wilson, Kingdoms of the Ordinary • American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Sidney Kingsley • Frost Medal: Allen Ginsberg / Richard Eberhart • Nebula Award: Orson Scott Card, Speaker For the Dead • Newbery Medal for children's literature: Patricia MacLachlan, Sarah, Plain and Tall • Prometheus Award: Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy • Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given • Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove • Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Henry Taylor, The Flying Change • Whiting Awards: Fiction: Kent Haruf, Denis Johnson, Padgett Powell, Mona Simpson; Poetry: John Ash, Hayden Carruth, Frank Stewart, Ruth Stone; Nonfiction: Darryl Pinckney (nonfiction/fiction); Plays: August Wilson Elsewhere • Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Władysław Bartoszewski • Premio Nadal: Manuel Vicent, Balada de Caín ==References==