1985 in literature
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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1985.
- February 25 – Sue Limb's parodic pastiche of the Lake Poets, The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere, begins broadcasting on BBC Radio 4 in the U.K.
- March 1 – The GNU Manifesto by Richard Stallman is published for the first time, and becomes a fundamental philosophical source within the free software movement.[1]
- August 11 – A memorial to the poet Hugh MacDiarmid is unveiled near his home at Langholm, Scotland.
- unknown dates – Three notable novels in English by female authors are published during the year: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale,[2] Jilly Cooper's Riders, the first of the Rutshire Chronicles, and Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.
New books
Fiction
- Isaac Asimov – Robots and Empire
- Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid's Tale[2]
- Jean M. Auel – The Mammoth Hunters
- Iain Banks – Walking on Glass
- Clive Barker – The Damnation Game
- Greg Bear
- M. C. Beaton – Death of a Gossip
- Thomas Bernhard – Old Masters: a comedy (Alte Meister: Komödie)
- Anthony Burgess – The Kingdom of the Wicked
- Orson Scott Card – Ender's Game
- Jilly Cooper – Riders[3]
- Bernard Cornwell – Sharpe's Honour
- Don DeLillo – White Noise
- Friedrich Dürrenmatt – The Execution of Justice (Justiz)
- Bret Easton Ellis – Less than Zero
- John Fowles – A Maggot
- Carlos Fuentes – The Old Gringo (Gringo Viejo)
- William Gaddis – Carpenter's Gothic
- Gabriel García Márquez – Love in the Time of Cholera (El amor en los tiempos del cólera)
- Alasdair Gray – The Fall of Kelvin Walker: A Fable of the Sixties
- Graham Greene – The Tenth Man
- Amy Hempel – Reasons to Live
- Frank Herbert – Chapterhouse: Dune
- John Irving – The Cider House Rules
- Garrison Keillor – Lake Wobegon Days
- Stephen King – Skeleton Crew
- László Krasznahorkai – Satantango
- Ursula K. Le Guin – Always Coming Home
- Doris Lessing – The Good Terrorist
- Cormac McCarthy – Blood Meridian
- Larry McMurtry – Lonesome Dove
- John D. MacDonald – The Lonely Silver Rain
- James A. Michener – Texas
- Brian Moore – Black Robe
- Iris Murdoch – The Good Apprentice
- Ellis Peters – An Excellent Mystery
- Caryl Phillips – The Final Passage
- Carl Sagan – Contact
- Sidney Sheldon – If Tomorrow Comes
- Sue Townsend – Rebuilding Coventry
- Anne Tyler – The Accidental Tourist
- Andrew Vachss – Flood
- Kurt Vonnegut – Galápagos
- Jeanette Winterson – Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
- Roger Zelazny – Trumps of Doom
Children and young people
- Chester Aaron – Out of Sight, Out of Mind
- Pamela Allen – A Lion in the Night
- Chris Van Allsburg – The Polar Express
- Frank Asch – I Can Blink
- Robert Cormier – Beyond the Chocolate War
- Roald Dahl – The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me
- Virginia Hamilton (with Leo and Diane Dillon) – The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales
- Patricia MacLachlan – Sarah, Plain and Tall
- Laura Numeroff – If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
- Pat O'Shea – The Hounds of the Morrigan
- Cynthia Rylant – A Blue-Eyed Daisy
- Jacqueline Wilson – How to Survive Summer Camp (novel)
- Elizabeth Winthrop – The Castle in the Attic
Drama
- Peter Brook and Jean-Claude Carrière (adapted) – Mahabharata
- Christopher Hampton (adapted) – Les Liaisons Dangereuses
- David Hare and Howard Brenton – Pravda
- Wallace Shawn – Aunt Dan and Lemon
- Sam Shepard – A Lie of the Mind
- Neil Simon – Biloxi Blues
- August Wilson – Fences
Poetry
- Carol Ann Duffy – Standing Female Nude
Non-fiction
- Bill Bryson – The Palace under the Alps and Over 200 Other Unusual, Unspoiled and Infrequently Visited Spots in 16 European Countries
- Roger Caron – Bingo! The Horrifying Eyewitness Account of a Prison Riot
- Allen Carr – The Easy Way to Stop Smoking
- Michael Denton – Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
- Elaine Dundy – Elvis and Gladys
- Julien Gracq – The Shape of a City
- G. L. Harriss (editor) – Henry V: The Practice of Kingship
- Ernest Hemingway – The Dangerous Summer
- David Lowenthal – The Past Is a Foreign Country
- Walter A. McDougall – ...The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age
- Tim O'Brien – The Nuclear Age
- Priscilla Beaulieu Presley – Elvis and Me
- David Robinson – Chaplin: His Life and Art
- Oliver Sacks – The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
- Roger Scruton – Thinkers of the New Left
- Gary Soto – Living Up the Street
Births
- February 7 - Justina Ireland, American science-fiction and fantasy author of young-adult fiction
- April 24 – Alexander Zeldin, British playwright and director
- September 24 – Eleanor Catton, New Zealand novelist[4]
- September 30 – Téa Obreht, Yugoslav-born American novelist writing in English
- Alisa Ganieva, Russian fiction writer and critic
