See also: 1969 in literature, other events of 1970, 1971 in literature, list of years in literature.
Events
- Deliverance by American poet James Dickey published. In 2001, the book would be named as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the editorial board of the American Modern Library.
New books
Births
Deaths
- January 10 - Charles Olson, poet
- January 29 - Basil Liddell Hart, military historian
- February 2 - Bertrand Russell, philosopher
- March 11 - Erle Stanley Gardner, Perry Mason author
- March 29 - Vera Brittain, novelist and poet
- April 11 - John O'Hara, novelist
- May 12 - Nelly Sachs, poet and dramatist
- June 3 - Adrian Conan Doyle, son and literary executor of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- June 7 - E. M. Forster, novelist
- June 16 - Elsa Triolet, novelist
- July 15 - Eric Berne, psychiatrist and author
- September 1 - François Mauriac, novelist
- September 28 - John Dos Passos, novelist
- November 25 - Yukio Mishima, Japanese author and rightist political activist (suicide)
Awards
- Booker Prize: Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member
- See 1970 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
- Hugo Award: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
- Nebula Award: Larry Niven, Ringworld
- Newbery Medal for children's literature: William H. Armstrong, Sounder
- Nobel Prize for Literature: Alexander Solzhenitsyn
- Prix Goncourt: Michel Tournier , Le Roi des Aulnes
- Prix Médicis French: Camille Bourniquel, Sélinonte ou la Chambre impériale
- Prix Médicis International: Luigi Malerba, Saut de la mort
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Charles Gordone, No Place To Be Somebody
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Jean Stafford, Collected Stories
- Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Howard, Untitled Subjects
- Viareggio Prize: Nello Saito, Dentro e fuori
