Deaths
- January 11 – Richmal Crompton, "Just William" author, 78
- March 11 – John Wyndham, British science fiction novelist, 65
- March 26 – John Kennedy Toole, novelist, 31 (suicide)
- March 27 – B. Traven, novelist, age unknown
- May 4 – Osbert Sitwell, novelist, poet, brother of Edith Sitwell and Sacheverell Sitwell, 76
- July 24 – Witold Gombrowicz, playwright and novelist, 64
- July 27 – Vivian de Sola Pinto, poet and memoirist, 73
- August 14 – Leonard Woolf, political theorist and husband of Virginia Woolf, 88
- September 6 – Gavin Maxwell, naturalist and author, 55 (cancer)
- September 17 – Greye La Spina, dramatist and short story writer, 89
- September 20 – Elinor Brent-Dyer, Chalet School author, 75
- October 21 – Jack Kerouac, author, 47 (internal haemorrhage)
Read more about this topic: 1969 In Literature
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“There is the guilt all soldiers feel for having broken the taboo against killing, a guilt as old as war itself. Add to this the soldier’s sense of shame for having fought in actions that resulted, indirectly or directly, in the deaths of civilians. Then pile on top of that an attitude of social opprobrium, an attitude that made the fighting man feel personally morally responsible for the war, and you get your proverbial walking time bomb.”
—Philip Caputo (b. 1941)
“Death is too much for men to bear, whereas women, who are practiced in bearing the deaths of men before their own and who are also practiced in bearing life, take death almost in stride. They go to meet death—that is, they attempt suicide—twice as often as men, though men are more “successful” because they use surer weapons, like guns.”
—Roger Rosenblatt (b. 1940)
“This is the 184th Demonstration.
...
What we do is not beautiful
hurts no one makes no one desperate
we do not break the panes of safety glass
stretching between people on the street
and the deaths they hire.”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)