1970 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1970.

Events
January 16 – The new Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus is inaugurated with a performance of Georg Büchner's Dantons Tod.[1] June 17 – Première of David Storey's play Home at the Royal Court Theatre, London, directed by Lindsay Anderson and starring Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson. July 7 – Death of English publisher Sir Allen Lane (b. 1902).[2] On August 21 his paperback imprint Penguin Books is acquired by Pearson. August 27 – RSC production of A Midsummer Night's Dream: The Royal Shakespeare Company premieres its revolutionary production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Peter Brook, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, England.[3] November 20 – Playwright Fadil Paçrami becomes Chairman of the Parliament of Albania. November 25 – In Tokyo, Japanese author and Tatenokai militia leader Yukio Mishima (45) and his followers take over the headquarters of the Japan Self-Defense Forces in an attempted coup d'état. After Mishima's speech fails to sway public opinion towards his right-wing politics, including restoration of the powers of the Emperor, he commits seppuku (public ritual suicide). December 5 – Dario Fo premières his play Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Morte accidentale di un anarchico) at Varese in Italy. Len Deighton's 1943-set Bomber, published this year in England, is the first novel written on a word processor, the IBM MT/ST.[4] Deliverance by American poet James Dickey published. In 2001, the book will be named as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the editorial board of the American Modern Library. An unexpurgated edition of John Cleland's Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 1748-9) is published in the United Kingdom without legal challenge. Bohumil Hrabal's books Domácí úkoly and Poupata are suppressed by the authorities in Czechoslovakia.

New books

 * 1) Ringworld by Larry Niven

Awards
Nobel Prize for Literature: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Canada See 1970 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France Prix Goncourt: Michel Tournier, Le Roi des Aulnes Prix Médicis French: Camille Bourniquel, Sélinonte ou la Chambre impériale Prix Médicis International: Luigi Malerba, Saut de la mort

United Kingdom Booker Prize: Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen, The God Beneath the Sea Cholmondeley Award: Kathleen Raine, Douglas Livingstone, Edward Brathwaite Eric Gregory Award: Helen Frye, Paul Mills, John Mole, Brian Morse, Alan Perry, Richard Tibbitts James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Lily Powell, The Bird of Paradise James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Roy Fuller

United States Hugo Award: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness Nebula Award: Larry Niven, Ringworld Newbery Medal for children's literature: William H. Armstrong, Sounder Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Charles Gordone, No Place To Be Somebody Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Jean Stafford, Collected Stories Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Howard, Untitled Subjects

Elsewhere Miles Franklin Award: Dal Stivens, A Horse of Air Premio Nadal: Jesús Fernández Santos, Libro de las memorias de las cosas Viareggio Prize: Nello Saito, Dentro e fuori