1968 in literature

The year 1968 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

 * Dean R. Koontz's first novel, Star Quest is published.
 * Glidrose Publications releases the James Bond novel, Colonel Sun by "Robert Markham" (a pseudonym for Kingsley Amis). Initially intended as a relaunch of the Bond book series following the death in 1964 of the character's creator, Ian Fleming, Colonel Sun instead ends up being the final book of the series (discounting a "biography" of Bond and a pair of film script adaptations) until John Gardner revives the literary James Bond in 1981.
 * The events of what is now referred to as May 1968, points to events in May–June 1968 in France, two months which saw the largest industrial strikes in French history, the shutdown of France's educational, commercial and media institutions, and the severest challenge up to that moment of Gaullist political authority. It had long term reach and global context: including "student movements", counter-culture,  le gauchisme and its eventual transformation into myth as a way of trying to account for subsequent developments in politics, popular culture, and social change.  What is now called May 1968 can also provide the context for and symbolize radical politics and revolt in the 1960s and beyond.
 * Tom Wolfe's books The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and The Pump House Gang are published on the same day in August 1968. Both books go on to become best-sellers and cement Wolfe's status as one of the generation's leading social critics, chroniclers of the counterculture of the 1960s and practitioners of New Journalism.

New books

 * Lloyd Alexander – The High King
 * Isaac Asimov – Asimov's Mysteries
 * James Blish – Black Easter
 * Nelson Bond – Nightmares and Daydreams
 * Elizabeth Bowen – Eva Trout
 * Richard Brautigan – In Watermelon Sugar
 * John Brunner
 * Not Before Time
 * Stand on Zanzibar
 * Anthony Burgess – Enderby Outside
 * Martin Caidin – The God Machine
 * Taylor Caldwell – Testimony of Two Men
 * John Dickson Carr
 * Dark of the Moon
 * Papa La-Bas
 * Agatha Christie – By the Pricking of My Thumbs
 * Arthur C. Clarke – 2001: A Space Odyssey
 * L. Sprague de Camp
 * The Goblin Tower
 * The Tritonian Ring
 * L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter – Conan of the Isles
 * August Derleth
 * The Adventure of the Unique Dickensians
 * Mr. Fairlie's Final Journey
 * A Praed Street Dossier
 * Wisconsin Murders
 * Philip K. Dick – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
 * Allen Drury – Preserve and Protect
 * Lawrence Durrell – Tunc
 * Arthur Hailey – Airport
 * Michael Harrison – The Exploits of Chevalier Dupin
 * Georgette Heyer – Cousin Kate
 * Barry Hines – A Kestrel for a Knave
 * Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp – Conan the Freebooter
 * Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter – Conan the Wanderer
 * Robert E. Howard, Björn Nyberg and L. Sprague de Camp – Conan the Avenger
 * Dorothy M. Johnson – Indian Country
 * James Jones – The Ice-Cream Headache and Other Stories
 * John le Carré – A Small Town in Germany
 * John D. MacDonald – Pale Gray for Guilt and The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper
 * Helen McInnes – The Salzburg Connection
 * Norman Mailer – Armies of the Night
 * Ruth Manning-Sanders – A Book of Mermaids
 * Robert Markham – Colonel Sun
 * Brian Moore – I Am Mary Dunne
 * Anthony Powell – The Military Philosophers
 * Jean Rhys – Tigers Are Better-Looking
 * Mordecai Richler – Cocksure
 * Robert Silverberg – The Masks of Time
 * Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
 * Cancer Ward
 * The First Circle
 * Muriel Spark – The Public Image
 * John Updike – Couples
 * Jack Vance – City of the Chasch
 * Gore Vidal – Myra Breckinridge
 * John Christopher
 * The Pool of Fire (1968)

New drama

 * Alan Bennett – Forty Years On
 * Hugo Claus – Vrijdag
 * Thomas Kilroy – The Death and Resurrection of Mr Roche
 * Tom Stoppard – The Real Inspector Hound

Poetry

 * Rod McKuen – Lonesome Cities
 * George Oppen — Of Being Numerous

Non-fiction

 * L. Sprague de Camp
 * The Conan Reader
 * The Great Monkey Trial
 * L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp – The Day of the Dinosaur
 * H. P. Lovecraft – Selected Letters II (1925–1929)
 * Paul R. Ehrlich – The Population Bomb
 * William Manchester – The Arms of Krupp: 1597-1968
 * Charles Rembar – The End of Obscenity: The trials of Lady Chatterley, Tropic of Cancer and Fanny Hill
 * Adam Smith – The Money Game
 * Erich von Däniken – Chariots of the Gods
 * James D. Watson – The Double Helix
 * Carlos Castaneda – The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

Births

 * January 30 – Rhoda Shipman, comic book writer
 * December 31 – Junot Díaz, author
 * date unknown – K. V. Johansen, children's author

Deaths

 * January 14 – Dorothea Mackellar, poet
 * April 16 – Edna Ferber
 * April 25 – Donald Davidson
 * May 1 – Harold Nicolson, biographer and husband of Vita Sackville-West
 * May 30 – Martin Noth, Hebraist
 * June 1 – Helen Keller
 * October 13 – Sir Stanley Unwin, publisher
 * October 30 – Conrad Richter, novelist
 * November 17 – Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast author
 * November 25 – Upton Sinclair
 * December 5 – Anna Kavan
 * December 20 – John Steinbeck

Awards

 * Nobel Prize for Literature: Yasunari Kawabata

Canada

 * See 1968 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

 * Prix Goncourt: Bernard Clavel, Les fruits de l'hiver
 * Prix Médicis: Élie Wiesel, Le Mendiant de Jérusalem

United Kingdom

 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Rosemary Harris, The Moon in the Cloud
 * Cholmondeley Award: Harold Massingham, Edwin Morgan
 * Eric Gregory Award: James Aitchison, Douglas Dunn, Brian Jones
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Maggie Ross, The Gasteropod
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Gordon Haight, George Eliot
 * Newdigate prize: James Fenton
 * Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Robert Graves

United States

 * American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Poetry, W. H. Auden
 * Hugo Award: Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light
 * Nebula Award: Alexei Panshin, Rite of Passage
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: E. L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
 * Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: William Styron, The Confessions of Nat Turner
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Anthony Hecht, The Hard Hours
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Anthony Hecht, Mijn moeder

Elsewhere

 * Premio Nadal: Álvaro Cunqueiro (El hombre que se parecía a Orestes
 * Viareggio Prize: Libero Bigiaretti, La controfigura