1976 in literature

The year 1976 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

 * Saul Bellow won both the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

New books

 * Kingsley Amis – The Alteration
 * Saul Bellow – To Jerusalem and Back
 * Peter Benchley – The Deep
 * Judy Blume
 * Blubber
 * Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
 * Erma Bombeck – The Grass is Always Greener over the Septic Tank
 * Marjorie Bowen – Kecksies and Other Twilight Tales
 * William F. Buckley – Saving the Queen... The first in the Blackford Oakes series
 * Anthony Burgess – Beard's Roman Women
 * Ramsey Campbell The Height of the Scream
 * Raymond Carver Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
 * Agatha Christie – Sleeping Murder
 * A. J. Cronin – Lady With Carnations
 * L. Sprague de Camp – The Virgin & the Wheels
 * Samuel R. Delany – Triton
 * August Derleth – Dwellers in Darkness
 * Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny – Deus Irae
 * Richard Ford – A Piece of My Heart
 * Brian Garfield – The Last Hard Men
 * Judith Guest – Ordinary People
 * Alex Haley – Roots: The Saga of an American Family
 * Frank Herbert – Children of Dune
 * Ira Levin – The Boys from Brazil
 * Robert Ludlum - The Gemini Contenders
 * Ruth Manning-Sanders – A Book of Monsters
 * Ryū Murakami – Almost Transparent Blue (Kagirinaku tōmei ni chikai burū?)
 * R. K. Narayan – The Painter of Signs
 * Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle -Inferno
 * Robert Nye – Falstaff
 * Marge Piercy – Woman on the Edge of Time
 * Anthony Powell – Infants of the Spring
 * Terry Pratchett – The Dark Side of the Sun
 * Manuel Puig – El beso de la mujer araña (Kiss of the Spider Woman)
 * Ishmael Reed – Flight To Canada
 * Anne Rice – Interview with the Vampire
 * Hubert Selby Jr. – The Demon
 * Tom Sharpe -  Wilt
 * Sidney Sheldon – A Stranger in the Mirror
 * Muriel Spark – The Takeover
 * Jacqueline Susann – Dolores
 * Paul Theroux - The Family Arsenal
 * Leon Uris – Trinity (novel)
 * Melvin Van Peebles – Just An Old Sweet Song
 * Gore Vidal – 1876
 * Kurt Vonnegut – Slapstick
 * Roger Zelazny
 * Doorways in the Sand
 * The Hand of Oberon
 * My Name is Legion

New drama

 * Athol Fugard – Sizwe Banzi is Dead
 * Dorothy Hewett – This Old Man Came Rolling Home

Non-fiction

 * Richard Dawkins – The Selfish Gene
 * L. Sprague deCamp – Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers
 * Michel Foucault – Histoire de la sexualité, 1: la volonte de savoir
 * Christopher Isherwood - Christopher and His Kind
 * Ryszard Kapuściński – Another Day of Life
 * Arthur Koestler – The Thirteenth Tribe
 * H. P. Lovecraft
 * Selected Letters IV (1932–1934)
 * Selected Letters V (1934–1937)
 * To Quebec and the Stars
 * Peter C. Newman – The Canadian Establishment
 * Jean-François Revel – The Totalitarian Temptation
 * Arnold J. Toynbee – Mankind and Mother Earth
 * Andrew Vachss – The Life-Style Violent Juvenile
 * Simon Wiesenthal – The Sunflower
 * Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein – The Final Days

Births

 * February 3 – Isla Fisher, actress and author
 * April 1 – David Chapman, music journalist
 * August 29 – T. James Belich (Colorado Tolston, pseudonym), playwright, novelist and actor

Deaths

 * January 12 – Agatha Christie, best-selling crime writer
 * January 25 – Victor Ehrenberg, historian
 * February 12 – John Lewis, philosopher
 * March 24 – E. H. Shepard, book illustrator
 * March 31 – Edward Streeter, humorist
 * April 28 – Richard Hughes, novelist
 * June 18 – Malcolm Johnson, investigative journalist
 * September 10 – Dalton Trumbo, novelist and screenwriter, one of the Hollywood Ten
 * November 6 – Patrick Dennis, novelist
 * December 21 – Munro Leaf, children's author
 * date unknown
 * Martín Luis Guzmán, novelist and journalist
 * Robert Speaight, actor, biographer and essayist
 * Yashpal, Hindi novelist

Awards

 * Nobel Prize for Literature: Saul Bellow

Canada

 * See 1976 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

 * Prix Goncourt: Patrick Grainville, Les Flamboyants
 * Prix Médicis French: Marc Cholodenko, Les États du désert
 * Prix Médicis International: Doris Lessing, The Gold Coronet – United Kingdom

Spain

 * Premio Miguel de Cervantes: Jorge Guillén

United Kingdom

 * Booker Prize: David Storey, Saville
 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Jan Mark, Thunder and Lightnings
 * Cholmondeley Award: Peter Porter, Fleur Adcock
 * Eric Gregory Award: Stewart Brown, Valerie Gillies, Paul Groves, Paul Hyland, Nigel Jenkins, Andrew Motion, Tom Paulin, William Peskett
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: John Banville, Doctor Copernicus
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Ronald Hingley, A New Life of Chekhov

United States

 * Frost Medal: A.M. Sullivan
 * Nebula Award: Frederik Pohl, Man Plus
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Susan Cooper, The Grey King
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Michael Bennett for concept, choreography, and direction; James Kirkwood, Jr. for book, Marvin Hamlisch for lyrics, Nicholas Dante for music, A Chorus Line
 * Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Saul Bellow – Humboldt's Gift
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: John Ashbery: Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

Elsewhere

 * Premio Nadal: Raúl Guerra Garrido, Lectura insólita de El Capital
 * Viareggio Prize: Mario Tobino, La bella degli specchi