See also: 1979 in literature, other events of 1980, 1981 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer (published 1979), reaches #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

• Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie is published.

New books

• Company - Samuel Beckett
• The Bourne Identity - Robert Ludlum
• A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
• Cosmos - Carl Sagan
• The Covenant - James A. Michener
• The Cradle Will Fall - Mary Higgins Clark
• Crossroads Marseilles 1940 - Mary Jayne Gold
• The Devil's Alternative - Frederick Forsyth
• The Fifth Horseman - Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre
• Firestarter - Stephen King
• The Girl in a Swing - Richard Adams
• In Loon Lake - E. L. Doctorow
• The Invasion of Canada - Pierre Berton
• The Iron Wolf and Other Stories - Richard Adams
• Joshua Then and Now - Mordecai Richler
• The Key to Rebecca - Ken Follett
• The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
• Princess Daisy - Judith Krantz
• Rage of Angels - Sidney Sheldon
• Random Winds - Belva Plain
• A Ring of Endless Light - Madeleine L'Engle
• Smiley's People - John le Carré
• Song of the Wild - Allan W. Eckert
• The Third Wave - Alvin Toffler
• Thy Neighbor's Wife - Gay Talese

Births

Deaths

• January 3 - Joy Adamson, conservationist and author of Born Free (killed by a servant in northern Kenya).
• June 7 - Henry Miller, writer
• December 2 - Romain Gary, writer
• December 8 - John Lennon, musician, author
• December 31 - Marshall McLuhan (author)

Awards

• Booker Prize: William Golding, Rites of Passage
• See 1980 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Nebula Award: Gregory Benford, Timescape
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Joan Blos , A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Czeslaw Milosz
• Premio Cervantes : Juan Carlos Onetti
• Prix Goncourt: Yves Navarre , Le Jardin d'acclimatation
• Prix Médicis French: Jean-Luc Benoziglio , Cabinet-portrait who refused the prize, thus it was given to Jean Lahougue 's Comptine des Height
• Prix Médicis International: André Brink , Une saison blanche et sèche
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Lanford Wilson, Talley's Folly
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Norman Mailer, The Executioner's Song
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Donald Justice, Selected Poems
• Whitbread Best Book Award : David Lodge, How Far Can You Go?