Calendar of Literary Facts
1979
- Soviet forces invade Afghanistan and install a puppet regime in Kabul; after a long guerrilla war, the Soviets are ousted
- Philip Levine publishes Ashes: Poems New and Old
- Donald Justice receives the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for Selected Poems
- Patricia Matthews publishes The Night Visitor
- Alice Hoffman publishes The Drowning Season
- Felice Picano publishes The Lure
- Jean Rhys dies
- Bernard Pomerance publishes The Elephant Man
- Lanford Wilson publishes Talley’s Folly
- Donald Justice publishes Selected Poems
- Bernard Pomerance receives an Obie Award for The Elephant Man
- Dick Francis publishes Whip Hand
- Norman Mailer receives the Pulitzer Prize in literature for The Executioner’s Song
- Norman Mailer publishes The Executioner’s Song
- The Salt II arms-limitation treaty is signed
- During the Iranian Revolution, U.S. embassy staff are taken captive and held hostage for 444 days
- The Shah of Iran is overthrown by Islamic militants incited by Ayatollah Khomeini, who sets up an Islamic oligarchy
- Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female prime minister of the U.K.
- A nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania attracts worldwide attention
- Voyager 1 discovers a faint ring of debris around Jupiter
- The Galileo deep-space probe is launched
- Paul de Man publishes Allegories of Reading
- Allen Tate dies
- William X. Kienzle publishes The Rosary Murders
- Elizabeth Hardwick publishes Sleepless Nights
- Nuruddin Farah publishes Sweet and Sour Milk
- Robert Pinsky publishes An Explanation of America
- Sam Shepard receives Obie Award for Buried Child
- Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd is produced
- Barbara Taylor Bradford publishes A Woman of Substance
- Octavia E. Butler publishes Kindred
- Barbara Chase-Riboud publishes Sally Hemings
- Lawrence Block publishes The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling
- John Cheever receives Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his The Stories of John Cheever
- Penelope Fitzgerald receives the Booker Prize for Offshore
- Kathy Acker publishes New York City in 1979
- John Joseph Mathews dies
- Angela Carter publishes The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories
- Dorothy Arzner dies
- Sam Shepard receives the Pulitzer Prize in drama for Buried Child
- Odysseus Elytis receives the Nobel Prize for Literature
- Tom Wolfe publishes The Right Stuff
- Joan Didion publishes The White Album
- The London Review of Books begins publication
- V. C. Andrews publishes Flowers in the Attic
- Douglas Adams publishes The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
- Dannie Abse publishes Pythagoras
- Maeve Binchy publishes Deeply Regretted By
- Peter Benchley publishes The Island
- William Styron publishes Sophie’s Choice
- Elizabeth Bishop dies (October 6)
- Nicholas Monsarrat dies (August 7)
- Forrest Carter dies (June 7)
- Edward (Jeffrey Irving) Ardizzone dies (November 8)
- S. J. Perelman dies (October 17)
- Beth Henley’ drama Crimes of the Heart is first performed (February 18)
- René Marqués dies (March 22)
- Jean Stafford dies (March 26)
