The year 1966 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• February 14 - Dissident writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky are sentenced to hard labour for "anti-Soviet activity".
• In a landmark obscenity case, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the banned novel John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland did not meet the Roth standard for obscenity.
• Author Jacqueline Susann has her first novel, Valley of the Dolls published. From a friend, she obtained a list of the bookstores upon which the New York Times relied for sales figures to determine its bestseller list. Ms. Susann then used her own money to buy large quantities of her own book at these selected stores resulting in her novel going to #1 on the "Times" bestseller list. Valley of the Dolls is the second best selling novel of all time.
• Publication of Octopussy and the Living Daylights, the final collection of James Bond short stories by the character's creator, Ian Fleming, who had died in 1964.

New drama

• Barbara Garson - MacBird
• Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
• Zden?k Sv?rák, Ji?í ?ebánek, Ladislav Smoljak - Akt (English The Nude), where the famous Czech fictional character Jára Cimrman was first introduced

Poetry

• Seamus Heaney - Death of a Naturalist

Non-fiction

• Dictionary of Canadian Biography, volume 1.
• L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp - Spirits, Stars, and Spells.
• Michel Foucault -The Order of Things (Les Mots et les choses. Une archéologie des sciences humaines.).
• P. J. Kavanagh - The Perfect Stranger.
• Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics.
• Nancy Mitford - The Sun King.
• Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. - A Thousand Days.

Births

• April 12 - Jim Duffy, political writer
• September 24 - Rhys Hughes, short story writer
• date unknown - Sarah Waters, novelist

Deaths

• January 18 - Kathleen Norris, writer
• March 10 - Frank O'Connor, short-story writer
• April 1 - Flann O'Brien, satirist
• April 2 - C. S. Forester, Hornblower author
• April 10 - Evelyn Waugh
• April 13 - Georges Duhamel, novelist
• June 7 - Jean Arp, sculptor, painter, and poet
• June 10 - Henry Treece, historical novelist
• June 30 - Margery Allingham, crime novelist
• July 25 - Frank O'Hara, poet
• August 6 - Cordwainer Smith, science fiction author
• September 25 - Mina Loy, poet and artist
• September 28 - André Breton, surrealist author
• November 26 - Siegfried Kracauer, journalist and critic

Awards

• Cholmondeley Award: Ted Walker, Stevie Smith
• Eric Gregory Award: Robin Fulton, Seamus Heaney, Hugo Williams
• See 1966 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Hugo Award: Frank Herbert, Dune and Roger Zelazny, ... And Call Me Conrad
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Christine Brooke-Rose, Such, and Aidan Higgins, Langrishe, Go Down
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Geoffrey Keynes, The Life of William Harvey
• Nebula Award: Samuel R. Delany, Babel-17 and Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Elizabeth Borten de Trevino, I, Juan de Pareja
• Nobel Prize for literature: Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Nelly Sachs
• Premio Nadal: Vicente Soto, La zancada
• Prix Goncourt: Edmonde Charles-Roux, Oublier Palerme
• Prix Médicis: Marie-Claire Blais, Une saison dans la vie d'Emmanuel
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Katherine Anne Porter, Collected Stories
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Eberhart, Selected Poems
• Viareggio Prize: Alfonso Gatto, La storia delle vittime

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