• February 14 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Supreme Leader of Iran (died 3 June 1989), issues a fatwa calling for the death of Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie and his publishers for issuing the novel The Satanic Verses (1988). On February 24 Iran places a US $3 million bounty on Rushdie's head.^[1] On August 3, 1989, a bomb kills Mustafa Mazeh in London as he attempts to plant it in a hotel, in order to carry out the fatwa.^[2]
• March 1 – The Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 comes into effect in the United States, making the country a party to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886.
• April 23 – Leading figures of the theatre mark William Shakespeare's birthday with a street party to oppose the destruction of the recently-discovered archaeological remains of the English Renaissance Rose Theatre and Globe theatres in London.^[3]
• October – The National Library of Norway is established, with a new building at Mo i Rana.^[4]
• December 29 – Playwright Václav Havel becomes President of Czechoslovakia.

Fiction edit

• Hanan al-Shaykh – Women of Sand and Myrrh (Misk al–ghazal)
• Martin Amis – London Fields
• Piers Anthony – Total Recall
• Iain Banks – Canal Dreams
• John Banville – The Book of Evidence
• Clive Barker – The Great and Secret Show
• Julian Barnes – A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
• Thomas Berger – Changing the Past
• Larry Bond – Red Phoenix
• Larry Brown – Dirty Work
• Anthony Burgess – Any Old Iron
• Nick Cave – And the Ass Saw the Angel
• Tom Clancy – Clear and Present Danger
• Mary Higgins Clark – While My Pretty One Sleeps
• Hugh Cook – The Wicked and the Witless
• Bernard Cornwell
  • Sharpe's Revenge
  • Sea Lord (aka Killer's Wake)
• Bryce Courtenay – The Power of One
• Robert Crais – Stalking the Angel
• Lindsey Davis – The Silver Pigs
• L. Sprague de Camp
  • The Honorable Barbarian
  • (with Fletcher Pratt) – The Complete Compleat Enchanter
• E. L. Doctorow – Billy Bathgate
• Katherine Dunn – Geek Love
• Umberto Eco – Foucault's Pendulum
• George Alec Effinger – A Fire in the Sun
• Mircea Eliade (died 1986) – Diary of a Short-Sighted Adolescent (Romanul adolescentului miop) (written 1921–1925)
• Ben Elton – Stark
• Steve Erickson – Tours of the Black Clock
• Laura Esquivel – Like Water for Chocolate (Como agua para chocolate)
• Ken Follett – The Pillars of the Earth
• Frederick Forsyth – The Negotiator
• Jon Fosse – Naustet (Boathouse)
• Gabriel García Márquez – The General in His Labyrinth (El general en su laberinto)
• John Gardner
  • Licence to Kill
  • Win, Lose or Die
• Charles Gill – The Boozer Challenge
• John Grisham – A Time to Kill
• A. M. Homes – Jack
• Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter – The Conan Chronicles
• John Irving – A Prayer for Owen Meany
• Kazuo Ishiguro – The Remains of the Day
• Fleur Jaeggy – it:I beati anni del castigo (Sweet Days of Discipline)
• Randall Kenan – A Visitation of Spirits
• Elias Khoury – رحلة غاندي الصغير (Rihlat Ghandi al-saghir, The Journey of Little Gandhi)
• Stephen King – The Dark Half
• László Krasznahorkai – The Melancholy of Resistance (Az ellenállás melankóliája)
• Joe R. Lansdale
  • Cold in July
  • By Bizarre Hands
• John le Carré – The Russia House
• H. P. Lovecraft – The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions (corrected edition)
• Hilary Mantel – Fludd
• Javier Marías – Todas las almas (All Souls)
• James A. Michener – Six Days in Havana
• Hanna Mina – The End of a Brave Man (Nihayat Rajul Shujaa)
• Bharati Mukherjee – Jasmine
• Larry Niven – The Legacy of Heorot
• Joyce Carol Oates – American Appetites
• Robert B. Parker – Playmates
• Ellis Peters
  • The Heretic's Apprentice
  • The Potter's Field
• Giuseppe Pontiggia – La grande sera
• Terry Pratchett
  • Guards! Guards!
  • Pyramids
• Paul Quarrington – Whale Music
• Mordecai Richler – Solomon Gursky Was Here
• Giampaolo Rugarli – Il nido di ghiaccio
• José Saramago – The History of the Siege of Lisbon
• Sidney Sheldon – The Sands of Time
• Dan Simmons – Hyperion
• John Skipp and Craig Spector – Book of the Dead
• Danielle Steel
  • Daddy
  • Star
• Bruce Sterling – Crystal Express
• Alexander Stuart – The War Zone
• Amy Tan – The Joy Luck Club
• Shashi Tharoor – The Great Indian Novel
• Rose Tremain – Restoration
• Jane Vandenburgh – Failure to Zig-Zag
• Andrew Vachss – Hard Candy
• Alice Walker – The Temple of My Familiar
• Robert McLiam Wilson – Ripley Bogle
• Roger Zelazny
  • Frost & Fire (short stories and essays)
  • Knight of Shadows

Children and young people edit

• Verna Aardema – Rabbit Makes a Monkey of Lion
• Joyce Barkhouse – Pit Pony
• Bruce Coville – My Teacher Is an Alien
• Anne Fine
  • Bill's New Frock
  • Goggle-Eyes
• Mark Helprin (with Chris Van Allsburg) – Swan Lake
• Yoshi Kogo – Big Al
• Norman Maclean (with Barry Moser) – A River Runs Through It
• Bill Martin Jr. (with Lois Ehlert) – Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
• David McKee – Elmer
• Jim Murphy – The Call Of The Wolves
• Bill Peet – Bill Peet: An Autobiography
• Robert D. San Souci – The Talking Eggs: A Folktale from the American South
• Jon Scieszka (with Lane Smith) – The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!
• R. L. Stine – The New Girl (first in the Fear Street series of 55 books)
• Christopher Tolkien (with J. R. R. Tolkien and Alan Lee) – The Treason of Isengard
• Hélène Desputeaux – Caillou
• Michael Rosen – We're Going on a Bear Hunt

Drama edit

• Herman Brusselmans and Tom Lanoye – De Canadese muur (The Canadian Wall)
• Jim Cartwright – Two
• Nick Darke – Kissing the Pope (original title: Campesinos)
• Michael Wall – Amongst Barbarians
• Keith Waterhouse – Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell

Poetry edit

• Simon Armitage – Zoom!
• Paul Fleischman – Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices
• David Lehman – The Best American Poetry 1989

Non-fiction edit

• Gisela Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg – Angst und Vorurteil
• Bill Bryson – The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America
• Rodney Cotterill – No Ghost in the Machine: Modern Science and the Brain, the Mind, and the Soul
• Stephen R. Covey – The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
• Bruno Dagens – Angkor: Heart of an Asian Empire
• William Dalrymple – In Xanadu: A Quest
• Cynthia Enloe – Bananas, Beaches and Bases
• Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon – Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony
• Rüdiger Imhof – John Banville: A Critical Introduction, the first full-length appraisal of the work of major turn of the century writer John Banville.^[5][6]
• Tim Jeal – Baden-Powell
• Pauline Kael – Hooked
• Bob Kane and Tom Andrae – Batman and Me
• John Keegan – The Face of Battle
• Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson – And Their Children After Them
• Peter Mayle – A Year in Provence
• Claudia Moatti – The Search for Ancient Rome
• Ann Moir and David Jessel – Brain Sex
• New Revised Standard Version of the Bible
• Michael Palin – Around the World in 80 Days
• Harold Perkin – The Rise of Professional Society. England Since 1880
• Gilda Radner – It's Always Something
• Peter Sloterdijk – Infinite Mobilization (Eurotaoismus)
• Dan Topolski and Patrick Robinson – True Blue: The Oxford Boat Race Mutiny
• V. Vale and Andrea Juno – Modern Primitives
• Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett – The Andy Warhol Diaries
• Jeremy Wilson – Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of T.E. Lawrence
• Bob Wood – Big Ten Country

• August 26 - Sara Raasch, American young-adult fiction writer

• January 4 – Srikrishna Alanahalli, Indian novelist and poet (born 1947)
• January 8 – Bruce Chatwin, English travel writer and novelist (born 1940)
• February 3 – John Cassavetes, American actor, director and writer (born 1929)
• February 12 – Thomas Bernhard, Austrian author (born 1931)
• March 14 – Edward Abbey, American essayist (born 1927)
• March 27 – Malcolm Cowley, American novelist and poet (born 1898)
• April 14 – Laurence Meynell (Valerie Baxter, A. Stephen Tring), English novelist and children's writer (born 1899)
• April 19 – Daphne du Maurier, English novelist (born 1907)
• May 19 – C. L. R. James, Trinidad-born American journalist (born 1901)
• May 20 – Erzsébet Galgóczi, Hungarian novelist, playwright and screenwriter (born 1930)
• July 31 – Zhou Yang, Chinese literary theorist (born 1908)
• August 23 – R. D. Laing, Scottish psychologist and author (born 1927)
• August 26 – Irving Stone, American novelist (born 1903)
• September 4
  • Georges Simenon, Belgian novelist and crime writer (born 1903)
  • Sir Ronald Syme, New Zealand classicist (born 1903)
• September 13 – Acharya Aatreya, Telugu screenwriter (born 1921)
• September 15 – Robert Penn Warren, American poet and novelist (born 1905)
• September 30
  • Horace Alexander, English current-affairs writer and ornithologist (born 1909)
  • Oskar Davičo, Serbian novelist and poet (born 1909)
• October 13 – Cesare Zavattini, Italian screenwriter (born 1902)
• November 22 – José Guadalupe Cruz, Mexican comics writer (born 1917)
• December 5 – George Selden (Terry Andrews), American children's author (gastrointestinal bleeding, born 1929)^[7]
• December 19 – Stella Gibbons, English novelist (born 1902)
• December 22 – Samuel Beckett, Irish-born playwright, novelist and poet (born 1906)
• December 26 – Paul Jennings, English humorist (born 1918)

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Camilo José Cela
• Europe Theatre Prize: Peter Brook
• Camões Prize (first award): Miguel Torga

Australia edit

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Mandy Sayer, Mood Indigo
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Gwen Harwood, Bone Scan
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: John Tranter, Under Berlin
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Alex Skovron, The Re-arrangement
• Miles Franklin Award: Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda

Canada edit

• See 1989 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France edit

• Prix Goncourt: Jean Vautrin, Un grand Pas vers le Bon Dieu
• Prix Décembre: Guy Dupré, Les Manœuvres d'automne
• Prix Médicis French: Serge Doubrovsky, Le Livre brisé
• Prix Médicis International: Alvaro Mutis, La Neige de l'amiral

United Kingdom edit

• Booker Prize: Kazuo Ishiguro – The Remains of the Day
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Anne Fine, Goggle-Eyes
• Cholmondeley Award: Peter Didsbury, Douglas Dunn, E. J. Scovell
• Eric Gregory Award: Gerard Woodward, David Morley, Katrina Porteous, Paul Henry
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: James Kelman, A Disaffection
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Ian Gibson, Federico Garcia Lorca: A Life
• Newdigate prize: Jane Griffiths
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Allen Curnow
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Richard Holmes, Coleridge: Early Visions
• The Sunday Express Book of the Year: Rose Tremain, Restoration

United States edit

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Nancy Vieira Couto, The Face in the Water
• Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Anthony Hecht
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Fiction, Isaac Bashevis Singer
• Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Jorie Graham, "Spring"
• Compton Crook Award: Elizabeth Moon, Sheepfarmer's Daughter
• Frost Medal: Gwendolyn Brooks
• National Book Critics Circle Award: to The Broken Cord by Michael Dorris
• National Book Award for Fiction: to Spartina by John Casey
• Nebula Award: Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, The Healer's War
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Paul Fleischman, Joyful Noise
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: to Dusk and Other Stories by James Salter
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Wendy Wasserstein, The Heidi Chronicles
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Anne Tyler – Breathing Lessons^[8]
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Wilbur: New and Collected Poems
• Whiting Awards:

Fiction: Ellen Akins, Marianne Wiggins

Nonfiction: Ian Frazier, Natalie Kusz, Lucy Sante, Tobias Wolff (nonfiction/fiction)

Plays: Timberlake Wertenbaker

Poetry: Russell Edson, Mary Karr, C.D. Wright

Japan edit

• Falcon Award (Maltese Falcon Society of Japan): Andrew Vachss for Strega
• The Japan Fantasy Novel Award is established, with Ken'ichi Sakemi winning with his novel Kōkyū Shōsetsu.