1991 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1991.
Events
- February – Sisters Vanessa Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave make their first and only joint appearance on stage, with niece Jemma Redgrave as Irina, in the title rôles of Chekhov's Three Sisters at the Queen's Theatre, London.
- July 11 – Hitoshi Igarashi, Japanese translator of Salman Rushdie's 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, is stabbed to death at the University of Tsukuba during The Satanic Verses controversy, in accordance with a fatwa against those involved in circulating the book.
- October – Irvine Welsh's first published fiction, the short story "The First Day of the Edinburgh Festival", appears in New Writing Scotland. It is later incorporated into Trainspotting.
- November 4 – An archaeological expedition is launched, eventually resulting in the discovery of a mass grave and identification of the body of the novelist Alain-Fournier, 77 years after his death as Lieutenant Henri-Alban Fournier in World War I. His bones are interred at Saint-Remy-la-Calonne.
New books
Fiction
- Julia Alvarez – How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
- Martin Amis – Time's Arrow: or the Nature of the Offence
- Piers Anthony
- *Tatham Mound
- *Question Quest
- *Virtual Mode
- Jeffrey Archer – As the Crow Flies
- Beryl Bainbridge – The Birthday Boys
- Clive Barker – Imajica
- Pat Barker – Regeneration
- Julian Barnes – Talking It Over
- Louis Begley – Wartime Lies
- Louis de Bernières – Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord
- A. S. Byatt – Possession: A Romance
- Agatha Christie – Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories
- Tom Clancy – The Sum of All Fears
- Mary Higgins Clark – Loves Music, Loves to Dance
- Hugh Cook – The Werewolf and the Wormlord
- Paul Cornell – Timewyrm: Revelation
- Bernard Cornwell – Stormchild
- Douglas Coupland – Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture
- L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp – The Pixilated Peeress
- Don DeLillo – Mao II
- Terrance Dicks – Timewyrm: Exodus
- Assia Djebar – Far from Medina
- Stephen R. Donaldson
- *The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story
- *The Gap into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge
- Roddy Doyle – The Van
- Kaori Ekuni – Kirakira Hikaru
- Bret Easton Ellis – American Psycho
- Joy Fielding – See Jane Run
- Stephen Fry – The Liar
- Diana Gabaldon – Outlander
- Neil Gaiman
- *The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes
- *The Sandman: Dream Country
- John Gardner – The Man from Barbarossa
- David Gates – Jernigan
- Ann Granger – Say It With Poison
- John Grisham – The Firm
- Josephine Hart – Damage
- Elisabeth Harvor – Our Lady of All Distances
- Mark Jacobson – Gojiro
- Stephen King – Needful Things
- John le Carré – The Secret Pilgrim
- Leslie Marmon Silko – Almanac of the Dead
- Penelope Lively – City of the Mind
- Morgan Llywelyn – Druids
- James A. Michener – Mexico
- Rohinton Mistry – Such a Long Journey
- Timothy Mo – The Redundancy of Courage
- Cees Nooteboom – The Following Story
- Ben Okri – The Famished Road
- Leonardo Padura Fuentes – Pasado perfecto
- John Peel – Timewyrm: Genesys
- Tito Perdue – Lee
- Ellis Peters – The Summer of the Danes
- Marge Piercy – He, She and It
- Terry Pratchett
- *Reaper Man
- *Witches Abroad
- Jean Raspail – Sire
- Alexandra Ripley – Scarlett
- J. Jill Robinson – Saltwater Trees
- Nigel Robinson – Timewyrm: Apocalypse
- Bernice Rubens – A Solitary Grief
- Norman Rush – Mating
- José Saramago – The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
- Michael Shaara – For Love of the Game
- Sidney Sheldon – The Doomsday Conspiracy
- Jane Smiley – A Thousand Acres
- Danielle Steel – Heartbeat
- James B. Stewart – Den of Thieves
- Michael Swanwick – Gravity's Angels
- Antonio Tabucchi – Requiem: A Hallucination
- Amy Tan – The Kitchen God's Wife
- Andrew Vachss – Sacrifice
- Bernard Werber – Empire of the Ants
- Tim Winton – Cloudstreet
- Helen Zahavi – Dirty Weekend
- Timothy Zahn – Heir to the Empire
- Haifa Zangana – Through the Vast Halls of Memory
- Roger Zelazny – ''Prince of Chaos''
Children and young people
- Arnold Adoff – In for Winter, Out for Spring
- Chris Van Allsburg – The Wretched Stone
- Avi – Nothing but the Truth: A Documentary Novel
- Margaret Barbalet - The Wolf
- Berlie Doherty – Dear Nobody
- Sarah Ellis – Pick-Up Sticks
- Karen Wynn Fonstad - The Atlas of Middle-earth
- Jostein Gaarder – Sophie's World , English translation 1995
- Sonia Levitin – The Man Who Kept His Heart in a Bucket
- Jacqueline Wilson – The Story of Tracy Beaker
- G. Clifton Wisler – ''Red Cap''
Drama
- Ariel Dorfman – Death and the Maiden
- Tony Kushner – Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes
- Mustapha Matura – The Coup
- Philip Ridley – The Pitchfork Disney
- Neil Simon – Lost in Yonkers
- George Tabori – Goldberg Variations
- Timberlake Wertenbaker – ''Three Birds Alighting on a Field''
Non-fiction
- Dionne Brand – No Burden to Carry: Narratives of Black Working Women in Ontario
- Marjorie Chibnall – Empress Matilda
- Henry Steele Commager – Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples
- Jung Chang – Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
- Françoise Dunand – Mummies: A Voyage Through Eternity
- Koenraad Elst – Ayodhya and after: issues before Hindu society
- Dave Foreman – Confessions of an Eco-Warrior
- Robert Hart – Forest Gardening: Rediscovering Nature and Community in a Post-Industrial Age
- Albert Hourani – A History of the Arab Peoples
- Anne Hugon – The Exploration of Africa: From Cairo to the Cape
- Pauline Kael – Movie Love
- Alan Macfarlane – The Diary of Ralph Josselin, 1616–1683
- Madonna – Sex
- Robert K. Massie – Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War
- Taslima Nasrin – Jabo na keno? jabo
- P.J. O'Rourke – Parliament of Whores
- Thomas Pakenham – The Scramble for Africa
- William Pokhlyobkin – A History of Vodka
- John Richardson – A Life of Picasso
- Simon Schama – Dead Certainties
- Art Spiegelman – Maus: A Survivor's Tale (II: And Here My Troubles Began)
- Georges Tate – L'Orient des Croisades
- Marie Wadden – Nitassinan: The Innu Struggle to Reclaim Their Homeland
- Naomi Wolf – The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women
- Zhang Chengzhi – ''History of the Soul''
Births
- January 23 – Jonahmae Panen Pacala, Filipino Wattpad author
- April 1 – Kat Zhang, American young-adult and middle-grade fiction writer
- April 20 – Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, Dutch novelist and poet
- unknown dates
- *Gabriel Bergmoser, Australian author, playwright and screenwriter
- *Chibundu Onuzo, Nigerian novelist
- *Sally Rooney, Irish fiction writer
Deaths
- January 22 – Robert Choquette, Canadian novelist and poet
- January 23 – Northrop Frye, Canadian literary critic
- January 29 – Yasushi Inoue, Japanese novelist
- February 1 – Ahmad Abd al-Ghafur Attar, Saudi Arabian writer, journalist and poet
- February 16 – Muhammad Sa'id al-Amudi, Saudi Arabian journalist, literary critic and official
- February 24 – John Daly, American journalist and game show host
- March 2 – Mary Howard, English romance novelist
- March 14 – Margery Sharp, English novelist and children's writer
- March 22 – Paul Engle, American poet and novelist
- April 3 – Graham Greene, English novelist
- April 4 – Max Frisch, Swiss playwright and novelist
- April 5 – Eve Garnett, English children's writer and illustrator
- April 12 – James Schuyler, American poet
- April 15 – Dante Milano, Brazilian modernist poet
- May 3 – Jerzy Kosinski, Polish-American novelist
- May 31 – Angus Wilson, English novelist
- June 24 – Sumner Locke Elliott, Australian-American author and playwright
- July 5 – Howard Nemerov, American poet
- July 24 – Isaac Bashevis Singer, Polish-born Jewish-American novelist
- August 1 – Yusuf Idris, Egyptian writer
- August 13 – John Sommerfield, English communist writer
- August 17 – Terence Kilmartin, Irish journalist and translator
- September 4
- *Peggy Ramsay, British theatrical agent
- *Tom Tryon, American actor and writer
- September 24 – Dr. Seuss, American children's writer
- September 27 – Roy Fuller, English poet
- October 7 – Natalia Ginzburg, Italian writer
- October 11 – Steven "Jesse" Bernstein, American performance poet
- October 12 – Arkady Strugatsky, Russian science fiction writer
- October 16 – Leon Levițchi, Romanian translator
- October 27 – George Barker, English poet
- November 29 – Frank Yerby, African American historical novelist
- December 5 – Jack Trevor Story, English novelist
- December 11 – Artur Lundkvist, Swedish author
- December 27 – Hervé Guibert, French writer and photographer
- Unknown date – Gogu Rădulescu, Romanian communist politician, journalist, and patron of the arts
Awards
Australia
- The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Andrew McGahan, Praise
- C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Jennifer Maiden, The Winter Baby
- Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Jennifer Maiden, The Winter Baby
- Mary Gilmore Prize: Jean Kent, Verandahs
- Miles Franklin Award: David Malouf, ''The Great World''
Canada
- See 1991 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
- The Edna Staebler Award is established to honor the best literary work of creative non-fiction by a Canadian author who had published their first or second writing within the preceding year.
- Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Susan Mayse, Ginger
- Arthur Ellis Award for Best True Crime: Susan Mayse, Ginger
France
- Prix Goncourt: Pierre Combescot, Les Filles du Calvaire
- Prix Décembre: Raphaël Confiant, Eau de café
- Prix Médicis: Pierre Simon, ''La Dérive des sentiments''
United Kingdom
- Booker Prize: Ben Okri, The Famished Road
- Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Berlie Doherty, Dear Nobody
- Cholmondeley Award: James Berry, Sujata Bhatt, Michael Hulse, Derek Mahon
- Eric Gregory Award: Roddy Lumsden, Glyn Maxwell, Stephen Smith, Wayne Burrows, Jackie Kay
- Guardian Fiction Award: Alan Judd, The Devil's Own Work
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Iain Sinclair, Downriver
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin
- Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Judith Wright
- Whitbread Best Book Award: John Richardson, A Life of Picasso
- The Sunday Express Book of the Year: Michael Frayn, ''A Landing on the Sun''
United States
- Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Julia Kasdorf, Sleeping Preacher
- Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: John Frederick Nims
- American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Poetry: Richard Wilbur
- Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Donald Hall, The Museum of Clear Ideas
- Compton Crook Award: Michael Flynn, In the Country of the Blind
- Frost Medal: Donald Hall
- Nebula Award: Michael Swanwick, Stations of the Tide
- Newbery Medal for children's literature: Jerry Spinelli, Maniac Magee
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Neil Simon, Lost in Yonkers
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: John Updike: Rabbit at Rest
- Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction: Edward O. Wilson: The Ants
- Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Mona Van Duyn: Near Changes
- Whiting Awards:
Elsewhere
- Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: György Konrád
- Premio Nadal: Alfredo Conde Cid, ''Los otros días''