See also: 1989 in literature, other events of 1990, 1991 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• J. K. Rowling gets the idea for Harry Potter while on a train ride from Manchester to London. She says "I was staring out the window, and the idea for Harry just came. He appeared in my mind's eye, very fully formed. The basic idea was for a boy who didn't know what he was." It would be seven more years before the world was introduced to Harry.

New books

• The Bourne Ultimatum - Robert Ludlum
• The Burden of Proof - Scott Turow
• The Cardinal Virtues - Andrew Greeley
• Circle of Shadows - Gerina Dunwich
• Clear and Present Danger - Tom Clancy
• The Concise Lexicon of the Occult - Gerina Dunwich
• Devices and Desires - P. D. James
• Eric - Terry Pratchett
• Four Past Midnight - Stephen King
• Get Shorty - Elmore Leonard
• A Graveyard for Lunatics - Ray Bradbury
• Heads - Greg Bear
• Harvest - Belva Plain
• Homecoming - John Bradshaw
• An Inconvenient Woman - Dominic Dunne
• Joy - Marsha Hunt
• Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton
• Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams & Mark Cawardine
• Liberty and Power - Harry L. Watson
• Message From Nam - Danielle Steel
• Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett
• Pilgrimage - James A. Michener
• Queen of Angels - Greg Bear
• September - Rosamund Pilcher
• - Stephen King
• A Tenured Professor - John Kenneth Galbraith
• The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
• Use of Weapons - Iain M. Banks
• Vineland - Thomas Pynchon

Deaths

• February 24 – Malcolm Forbes, publisher
• May 10 – Walker Percy
• August 25 – Morley Callaghan, Canadian writer
• October 23 – Louis Althusser, French Marxist philosopher
• November 8 – Anya Seton, author
• December 14 – Friedrich Dürrenmatt, writer

Awards

• Booker Prize: A. S. Byatt, Possession
• Caldecott Award: Ed Young , Lon Po Po: A Red–Riding Hood Story from China
• See 1990 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Hugo Award for Best Novel: Dan Simmons for Hyperion
• National Book Award for Fiction: Charles Johnson for Middle Passage
• Nebula Award: Ursula K. Le Guin, Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Lois Lowry, Number the Stars
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Octavio Paz
• Prix Goncourt: Jean Rouaud , Les Champs d'honneur
• Prix Décembre: François Maspero , Les Passagers du Roissy–Express
• Prix Médicis French: Les Quartiers d'hiver – Jean–Noël Pancrazi
• Prix Médicis International: Amitav Ghosh,, Les feux du Bengale
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: August Wilson, The Piano Lesson
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Oscar Hijuelos for The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Charles Simic: The World Doesn't End
• Whitbread Best Book Award : Nicholas Mosley , Hopeful Monsters