1968 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1968.

Events

• January 1 – Cecil Day-Lewis is announced as the new Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom.
• April – The American edition of Andrew Garve's thriller The Long Short Cut becomes the first book printed completely by electronic composition.
• May – The Action Theater in Munich is disbanded after its building is wrecked by one of its founders, jealous of director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's growing power in the group.
• June 17 – Tom Stoppard's parodic comedy The Real Inspector Hound opens at the Criterion Theatre in London's West End, starring Richard Briers and Ronnie Barker.
• July 28 – Last Exit to Brooklyn is cleared of obscenity in the English appeal court. John Mortimer appears for the defence.
• September 26 – Theatres Act 1968 (royal assent July 26) ends censorship of the theatre in the United Kingdom.
• November – The English novelist Anthony Burgess and his new wife Liana settle in Lija on Malta.
• unknown dates
  • The first translations and book-length discussion of the Sumerian Enheduanna's work is published.
  • Dean R. Koontz's first novel, Star Quest, is published by Ace Books in the United States.
  • The Arvon Foundation is established by young poets John Fairfax and John Moat in the UK to promote creative writing.

New books

Fiction

• Ayi Kwei Armah – The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born
• Elizabeth Bowen – Eva Trout
• Anthony Burgess – Enderby Outside
• Victor Canning – The Melting Man
• Cormac McCarthy – Outer Dark
• Per Anders Fogelström – Stad i världen
• Michael Innes – Appleby at Allington
• John Irving – Setting Free the Bears
• Halldór Laxness – Kristnihald undir jökli (Christianity under the Glacier)
• John le Carré – A Small Town in Germany
• Helen MacInnes – The Salzburg Connection
• Ngaio Marsh – Clutch of Constables
• N. Scott Momaday – House Made of Dawn
• Brian Moore – I Am Mary Dunne
• Fănuș Neagu – Îngerul a strigat ("The Angel Has Shouted")
• Anthony Powell – The Military Philosophers
• Giorgio Scerbanenco – I ragazzi del massacro
• Robert Silverberg – The Masks of Time
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – Cancer Ward («Раковый Корпус», Rakovy Korpus)
• Muriel Spark – The Public Image

Children and young people

• Lloyd Alexander – The High King
• Joan Aiken – The Whispering Mountain
• Don Freeman – Corduroy
• Russell Hoban – The Mouse and His Child
• Ted Hughes – The Iron Man
• Judith Kerr – The Tiger Who Came to Tea
• Alexander Key – Escape to Witch Mountain
• David McKee – Elmer the Patchwork Elephant
• Robert C. O'Brien – The Silver Crown
• Jill Tomlinson – The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark
• Paul Zindel – The Pigman (first in The Pigman trilogy)

Drama

• Michel Tremblay – Les Belles-Sœurs

Poetry

Main article: 1968 in poetry

Non-fiction

• Eldridge Cleaver – Soul on Ice
• Joan Didion – Slouching Towards Bethlehem
• Esther Hautzig – The Endless Steppe (autobiography)
• Bevis Hillier – Art Deco of the 20s and 30s
• Pauline Kael – Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
• Gershon Legman – Rationale of the Dirty Joke
• Peter Maas – The Valachi Papers
• Erich von Däniken – Chariots of the Gods? (Erinnerungen an die Zukunft)
• Gwyn Thomas – A Few Selected Exits
• James D. Watson – The Double Helix

Births

• October 7 – Rachel Kushner, American writer
• unknown dates
  • Brock Clarke, American writer
  • Fatou Diome, French-Senegalese writer
  • K. V. Johansen, Canadian children's author
  • Park Min-gyu, South Korean writer

Deaths

• January 21 – Will Lang, Jr., American journalist (born 1914)
• March 23 – Edwin O'Connor, American journalist, novelist, and radio commentator (born 1918)
• April 4 - Muhammad Taha al-Huwayzi, Iranian-Iraqi Ja'fari jurist, religious teacher and poet (born 1889)
• April 16 – Edna Ferber, American novelist, short story writer and playwright (born 1885)
• April 27 – Vasily Azhayev, Soviet writer (born 1915)
• April 29 – Anthony Boucher, American author, critic, and editor (born 1911)
• May 1 – Sir Harold Nicolson, British biographer (born 1886)
• May 30 – Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopșor, Romanian anthropologist, ethnographer and children's writer (born 1900)
• May 31 – Abel Bonnard, French poet, novelist and politician (born 1883)
• June 1 – Helen Keller, deaf-blind American author, activist and lecturer (born 1880)
• August 21 - Germaine Guèvremont, Canadian writer (born 1893)
• November 17 – Mervyn Peake, English novelist (dementia, born 1911)
• November 25 – Upton Sinclair, American novelist and politician (born 1878)
• November 28 – Enid Blyton, English author and poet (born 1897)
• December 5 – Anna Kavan, British novelist, short story writer and painter (born 1901)
• December 20 – John Steinbeck, American novelist (congestive heart failure, born 1902)
• December 24 – D. Gwenallt Jones, Welsh poet (born 1899)

Awards

• Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Léopold Sédar Senghor