See also: 1985 in literature, other events of 1986, 1987 in literature, list of years in literature.
Events
New books
Births
Deaths
- January 1 - Lord David Cecil, critic and biographer
- January 4 - Christopher Isherwood, novelist
- January 24 - L. Ron Hubbard, science fiction writer, founder of Scientology
- February 11 - Frank Herbert, American science fiction author
- February 26 - Robert Penn Warren, poet, author
- March 4 - Elizabeth Smart, Canadian poet and novelist
- March 18 - Bernard Malamud, novelist
- April 14 - Simone de Beauvoir, philosopher and feminist writer
- May 15 - Theodore H. White, writer
- June 14 - Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer
- August 3 - Beryl Markham, traveller and author
- August 20 - Milton Acorn, Canadian poet, writer, and playwright
- December 17 - J. F. Hendry, poet
- December 19 - Virginia C. Andrews, novelist
Awards
- Booker Prize: Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils
- See 1986 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
- Nebula Award: Orson Scott Card, Speaker For the Dead
- Newbery Medal for children's literature: Patricia MacLachlan, Sarah, Plain and Tall
- Nobel Prize for Literature: Wole Soyinka
- Prix Goncourt: Michel Host , Valet de nuit
- Prix Médicis French: Pierre Combescot, Les Funérailles de la Sardine
- Prix Médicis International: John Hawkes, Aventures dans le commerce des peaux en Alaska
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove
- Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Henry Taylor, The Flying Change
- Whitbread Best Book Award: Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World
