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The year 1969 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• The first Booker Prize is awarded.
• "Penelope Ashe", author of the bestselling novel Naked Came the Stranger, is found to be several people who each took a turn writing a chapter of what they described as "junk" in order to prove that sex-filled trash sells. It did.

New books

• Jorge Amado - Tenda dos Milagres (Tent of Miracles)
• Kingsley Amis - The Green Man
• Poul Anderson - Satan's World
• William H. Armstrong - Sounder
• Penelope Ashe - Naked Came the Stranger
• Margaret Atwood - The Edible Woman
• Ray Bradbury - I Sing the Body Electric
• William S. Burroughs - The Last Words of Dutch Schultz
• Merton H. Coleman - That Godless Woman
• March Cost - The Veiled Sultan
• Michael Crichton - The Andromeda Strain
• John Cheever - Bullet Park
• A. J. Cronin - A Pocketful of Rye
• L. Sprague de Camp - The Golden Wind
• Marion Eames - Y Stafell Ddirgel (The Secret Room)
• John Fowles - The French Lieutenant's Woman
• Graham Greene - Travels with My Aunt
• Sam Greenlee - The Spook Who Sat By the Door
• Günter Grass - Örtlich betäubt (Local Anaesthetic)
• Frank Herbert - Dune Messiah
• Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter - Conan of Cimmeria
• David H. Keller - The Folsom Flint and Other Curious Tales
• Elmore Leonard - The Big Bounce
• Doris Lessing - The Four-Gated City
• H. P. Lovecraft and Others - Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
• John D. MacDonald - Dress Her in Indigo
• Yukio Mishima - Runaway Horses
• Michael Moorcock - Behold the Man
• C. L. Moore - Jirel of Joiry
• Vladimir Nabokov - Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
• Don Pendleton - War Against The Mafia
• Chaim Potok - The Promise
• Manuel Puig - Little Painted Mouths
• Mario Puzo - The Godfather
• Ellery Queen - The Campus Murders
• Pauline Réage - Retour à Roissy
• Mordecai Richler - The Street
• Harold Robbins - The Inheritors
• Philip Roth - Portnoy's Complaint
• Irwin Shaw - Rich Man, Poor Man
• Raymond Spence - Nothing Black But A Cadillac
• Rex Stout - Death of a Dude
• Edward Streeter - Ham Martin, Class of '17
• Jacqueline Susann - The Love Machine
• Theodore Taylor - The Cay
• Colin Thiele - Blue Fin
• Jack Vance
  • The Dirdir
  • Emphyrio
  • Servants of the Wankh
• Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five
• Irving Wallace - The Seven Minutes
• Roger Zelazny
  • Creatures of Light and Darkness
  • Damnation Alley
  • Isle of the Dead

New drama

• Athol Fugard - Boesman and Lena
• Joe Orton - What the Butler Saw (posthumously published)
• Dennis Potter - Son of Man (television)

Poetry

• James Schuyler - Freely Espousing

Non-fiction

• Maya Angelou - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
• H. Rap Brown - Die Nigger Die!
• L. Sprague de Camp and George H. Scithers, editors - The Conan Swordbook.
• Antonia Fraser - Mary Queen of Scots.
• Peter Geach - God and the Soul.
• Desmond Morris - The Human Zoo

Births

• January - David Mitchell, novelist
• January 17 - Michael Moynihan, journalist and publisher
• May 6 - Emmanuel Larcenet, comics author
• November 3 - Rik Woods, poet
• November 13 - John Belluso, dramatist
• date unknown
  • David Auburn, dramatist
  • Adrian Goldsworthy, military historian
  • John Harris, journalist

Deaths

• January 11 - Richmal Crompton, author
• March 11 - John Wyndham, British author
• March 26 - John Kennedy Toole, author
• March 27 - B. Traven, writer
• May 4 - Osbert Sitwell, novelist, poet, brother of Edith Sitwell and Sacheverell Sitwell
• July 24 - Witold Gombrowicz, playwright and novelist
• August 14 - Leonard Woolf, political theorist and husband of Virginia Woolf
• September 6 - Gavin Maxwell, naturalist and author
• September 20 - Elinor Brent-Dyer, Chalet School author
• October 21 - Jack Kerouac, author
• date unknown - Vivian de Sola Pinto, poet and memoirist
• date unknown - Greye La Spina, writer

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Samuel Beckett

Canada

• See 1969 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Félicien Marceau, Creezy
• Prix Médicis: Hélène Cixous, Dedans

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: P. H. Newby - Something to Answer For
• Cholmondeley Award: Derek Walcott, Tony Harrison
• Eric Gregory Award: Gavin Bantock, Jeremy Hooker, Jenny King, Neil Powell, Landeg E. White
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Elizabeth Bowen, Eva Trout
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Antonia Fraser, Mary, Queen of Scots
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Stevie Smith

United States

• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Tennessee Williams
• Hugo Award: John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar
• Nebula Award: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Lloyd Alexander, The High King
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Howard Sackler, The Great White Hope
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: N. Scott Momaday - House Made of Dawn
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: George Oppen: Of Being Numerous

Elsewhere

• Premio Nadal: Francisco García Pavón (Las hermanas coloradas
• Viareggio Prize: Fulvio Tomizza, L'albero dei sogni

Further reading

• 1969: The Year Everything Changed by Rob Kirkpatrick. Skyhorse Publishing, 2009. ISBN 9781602393660.

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