1980 in literature
This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1980.

Events
June 5
The Royal Shakespeare Company opens a production at the Aldwych Theatre, London, of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, adapted from Charles Dickens' novel by David Edgar.
Willy Russell's comedy Educating Rita opens in a Royal Shakespeare Company production with Julie Walters in the title rôle, at The Warehouse in London.
August 25 – Pramoedya Ananta Toer's This Earth of Mankind (Bumi Manusia), the first of a tetralogy of historical novels, the Buru Quartet, is published in Indonesia after Toer's release from ten years' political imprisonment. It is banned in the country the following year.
September – A production of Shakespeare's Macbeth with Peter O'Toole in the lead opens at the Old Vic Theatre, London. It is often seen one of the great disasters in theater history.
September 23 – The Field Day Theatre Company presents its first production, the première of Brian Friel's Translations, at the Guildhall, Derry in Northern Ireland.
November 27 – English playwright Harold Pinter marries biographer and novelist Lady Antonia Fraser after his divorce from the actress Vivien Merchant.
December 8 – Mark David Chapman shoots John Lennon in New York City while carrying a copy of J. D. Salinger's 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, which he claims "is my statement."
Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer (published 1979), reaches #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list.
Vasily Grossman's novel Life and Fate («Жизнь и судьба», completed 1959) is first published, in Western Europe.
Marguerite Yourcenar becomes the first woman elected to the Académie française.
The first Tibetan-language literature journal, Tibetan Literature and Art (), is published by the Tibet Autonomous Region Writers Association (TARWA); it features short stories.
The National Library of Indonesia is created by merger.

New books

Fiction
Douglas Adams – The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Warren Adler – The War of the Roses
Woody Allen – Side Effects
V. C. Andrews – Petals on the Wind
Jean M. Auel – The Clan of the Cave Bear
Thomas Berger – Neighbors
Anthony Burgess – Earthly Powers
Ramsey Campbell, editor – New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
Bruce Chatwin – The Viceroy of Ouidah
Mary Higgins Clark – The Cradle Will Fall
J. M. Coetzee – Waiting for the Barbarians
Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre -The Fifth Horseman
Pat Conroy – The Lords of Discipline
Basil Copper – Necropolis
L. Sprague de Camp
Conan and the Spider God
The Purple Pterodactyls
Mircea Diaconu – La noi, când vine iarna
E. L. Doctorow – Loon Lake
Marguerite Duras – L'Homme assis dans le couloir
Allan W. Eckert – Song of the Wild
Umberto Eco – The Name of the Rose (Il Nome della Rosa)
Shusaku Endo (遠藤 周作) – The Samurai (侍)
Ken Follett – The Key to Rebecca
Frederick Forsyth – The Devil's Alternative
Mary Jayne Gold – Crossroads Marseilles 1940
William Golding – Rites of Passage
Graham Greene – Dr. Fischer of Geneva
Douglas Hill
Day of the Starwind
Deathwing Over Veynaa
Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp – The Treasure of Tranicos
Hammond Innes – Solomon's Seal
P. D. James – Innocent Blood
Stephen King – Firestarter
Judith Krantz – Princess Daisy
Björn Kurtén – Dance of the Tiger
Manuel Mujica Láinez – El gran teatro
Derek Lambert –  I, Said the Spy
John le Carré – Smiley's People
Madeleine L'Engle – A Ring of Endless Light
Robert Ludlum – The Bourne Identity
James A. Michener – The Covenant
Haruki Murakami (村上 春樹) – Pinball, 1973 (1973 年のピンボール, Sen-Kyūhyaku-Nanajū-San-Nen no Pinbōru)
Ryū Murakami (村上 龍) – Coin Locker Babies (コインロッカー・ベイビーズ)
Cees Nooteboom – Rituals

Robert B. Parker – Looking for Rachel Wallace
Pepetela – Mayombe
Ellis Peters – Monk's Hood
Tom Phillips – A Humument: a treated Victorian novel (1st trade edition)
Belva Plain – Random Winds
Paulette Poujol-Oriol – Le Creuset (The Crucible)
Marin Preda – Cel mai iubit dintre pământeni (The Most Beloved of Earthlings)
Herman Raucher – There Should Have Been Castles
Mordecai Richler – Joshua Then and Now
Marilynne Robinson – Housekeeping
Salman Rushdie – Midnight's Children
Sidney Sheldon – Rage of Angels
Gay Talese – Thy Neighbor's Wife
Walter Tevis – Mockingbird
John Kennedy Toole – A Confederacy of Dunces
Gene Wolfe – The Shadow of the Torturer
Roger Zelazny
Changeling
The Last Defender of Camelot

Children and young people
Richard Adams
The Girl in a Swing
The Iron Wolf and Other Stories
Vivien Alcock – The Haunting of Cassie Palmer
Lynne Reid Banks – The Indian in the Cupboard
Jill Barklem – Brambly Hedge series:
Spring Story
Summer Story
Autumn Story
Winter Story
Ruskin Bond – The Cherry Tree
Matt Christopher – Wild Pitch
Roald Dahl – The Twits
Thomas M. Disch – The Brave Little Toaster
Buchi Emecheta – Titch the Cat
Ruth Manning-Sanders – A Book of Spooks and Spectres
Thomas Meehan – Annie: An old-fashioned story
Robert Munsch – The Paper Bag Princess
Susan Musgrave
Gullband
Hag Head
Ruth Park – Playing Beatie Bow
Avril Rowlands – God's Wonderful Railway
Marjorie W. Sharmat – Gila Monsters Meet you at the Airport
Mary Stewart – A Walk in Wolf Wood

Drama
Howard Brenton – The Romans in Britain
Andrea Dunbar – The Arbor
David Edgar (adaptation) – The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
Ronald Harwood – The Dresser
Ron Hutchinson – The Irish Play
Kenneth Ross – Breaker Morant
Willy Russell – Educating Rita
Sam Shepard – True West

Poetry

Valerio Magrelli – Ora serrata retinae
Oxford Book of Contemporary Verse

Non-fiction
Tony Benn – Arguments for Socialism
Pierre Berton – The Invasion of Canada
Maryanne Blacker and Pamela Clark – Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book
David Bohm – Wholeness and the Implicate Order
L. Sprague de Camp – The Ragged Edge of Science
L. Sprague de Camp (as editor) – The Spell of Conan
Graham Chapman et al. – A Liar's Autobiography
Marilyn Ferguson – The Aquarian Conspiracy
Stanley Fish – Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities
Julien Gracq – Reading Writing
Graham Greene – Ways of Escape
Stephen Hawking – A Brief History of Time
Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman – No One Here Gets Out Alive
János Kornai – Economics of Shortage (Hiány)
Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers – Grimoire of Armadel translation from French (posthumous)
Ram Swarup – The Word as Revelation: Names of Gods
Michael Medved and Harry Medved – The Golden Turkey Awards
Carl Sagan – Cosmos
Randy Shilts – And the Band Played On
Alvin Toffler – The Third Wave

Deaths
January 3
Joy Adamson, Silesian-born conservationist and writer living in Kenya (murdered, born 1910)
George Sutherland Fraser, Scottish poet and critic (born 1915)
January 11 – Barbara Pym, English novelist (cancer, born 1913)
February 25 – Caradog Prichard, Welsh poet and novelist in Welsh (born 1904)
March 12 – Eugeniu Ștefănescu-Est, Romanian poet, novelist and cartoonist (born 1881)
March 25 – James Wright, American poet (born 1927)
March 26 – Roland Barthes, French literary theorist (born 1915)
April 15 – Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher, novelist and dramatist (born 1905)
April 24 – Alejo Carpentier, French Cuban novelist and writer (cancer, born 1904)
May 7 – Margaret Cole, English political writer, biographer and activist (born 1893)
May 16 – Marin Preda, Romanian novelist (asphyxiation, born 1922)
June 7 – Henry Miller, American novelist (born 1891)
July 1 – C. P. Snow, English novelist and scientist (born 1905)
July 6 – Mart Raud, Estonian poet, playwright and writer (born 1903)
July 9 – Vinicius de Moraes, Brazilian poet and songwriter (born 1913)
July 17 – Traian Herseni, Romanian social scientist and journalist (born 1907)
July 26 – Kenneth Tynan, English-born theater critic (pulmonary emphysema, born 1927)
August 8 – David Mercer, English dramatist (born 1928)
August 10 – Gareth Evans, British philosopher (lung cancer (born 1946)
September 18 – Katherine Anne Porter, American novelist and essayist (born 1890)
November 9 – Patrick Campbell, Irish journalist and wit (born 1913)
December 2 – Romain Gary (Roman Kacew), French novelist (suicide, born 1914)
December 8 – John Lennon, English musician, songwriter and author (murdered, born 1940)
December 12 – Ben Travers, English playwright, screenwriter and novelist (born 1886)
December 27 – Todhunter Ballard, American genre novelist (born 1903)
December 31 – Marshall McLuhan, Canadian philosopher (born 1911)

Awards
Nobel Prize for Literature: Czesław Miłosz

Australia
The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Inaugural award to Archie Weller, The Day Of The Dog; the award is initially given to Paul Radley, who, in 1996, admits that his manuscript was actually written by his uncle.
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: David Campbell, Man in the Honeysuckle
Miles Franklin Award: Jessica Anderson, The Impersonators

Canada
See 1980 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France
Prix Goncourt: Yves Navarre, Le Jardin d'acclimatation
Prix Médicis French: Jean-Luc Benoziglio, Cabinet-portrait who refused the prize, thus it was given to Jean Lahougue's Comptine des Height
Prix Médicis International: Andre Brink, Une saison blanche et sèche

United Kingdom
Booker Prize: William Golding, Rites of Passage
Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Peter Dickinson, City of Gold
Cholmondeley Award: George Barker, Terence Tiller, Roy Fuller
Eric Gregory Award: Robert Minhinnick, Michael Hulse, Blake Morrison, Medbh McGuckian
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Robert B. Martin, Tennyson: The Unquiet Heart
Whitbread Best Book Award: David Lodge, How Far Can You Go?

United States
American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Edward Albee
Caldecott Medal: Barbara Cooney, Ox-Cart Man
Dos Passos Prize: Graham Greene
Nebula Award: Gregory Benford, Timescape
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Joan Blos, A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Lanford Wilson, Talley's Folly
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Norman Mailer, The Executioner's Song
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Donald Justice, Selected Poems

Elsewhere
Hugo Award for Best Novel: Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise
Premio Cervantes : Juan Carlos Onetti
Premio Nadal: Juan Ramón Zaragoza, Concerto grosso