The year 1990 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• J. K. Rowling gets the idea for Harry Potter while on a train ride from Manchester to London. She says "I was staring out the window, and the idea for Harry just came. He appeared in my mind's eye, very furlly formed. The basic idea was for a boy who didn't know what he was." It would be seven more years before the world was introduced to "Harry."
• Ernest Borneman is awarded the Magnus Hirschfeld Medal.

New books

• Douglas Adams & Mark Cawardine - Last Chance to See
• Iain M. Banks - Use of Weapons
• Greg Bear - Heads and Queen of Angels
• William Boyd - Brazzaville Beach
• Ray Bradbury - A Graveyard for Lunatics
• John Bradshaw - Homecoming
• Tom Clancy - Clear and Present Danger
• Hugh Cook - The Wazir and the Witch and The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers
• Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe's Waterloo and Crackdown
• Michael Crichton - Jurassic Park
• Dominick Dunne - An Inconvenient Woman
• James Ellroy - L.A. Confidential
• John Kenneth Galbraith - A Tenured Professor
• John Gardner - Brokenclaw
• Elizabeth George - Well-Schooled in Murder
• Andrew Greeley - The Cardinal Virtues
• Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter - The Conan Chronicles 2
• Marsha Hunt - Joy
• P. D. James - Devices and Desires
• Imre Kertész - Kaddish for an Unborn Child (Kaddis a meg nem született gyermekért)
• Stephen King - Four Past Midnight and The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Version
• Hanif Kureishi - The Buddha of Suburbia
• Elmore Leonard - Get Shorty
• Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Ultimatum
• James A. Michener - Pilgrimage
• Brian Moore - Lies of Silence (source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Moore_%28novelist%29)
• Tim O'Brien - The Things They Carried
• Orhan Pamuk - The Black Book
• Robert B. Parker - Stardust
• Rosamund Pilcher - September
• Belva Plain - Harvest
• Terry Pratchett - Eric and Moving Pictures
• Thomas Pynchon - Vineland
• Lucius Shepard - The Ends of the Earth
• Danielle Steel - Message From Nam
• James Tiptree, Jr. - Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
• Scott Turow - The Burden of Proof
• Andrew Vachss - Blossom
• Harry L. Watson - Liberty and Power
• Banana Yoshimoto - Amrita

New drama

• Brian Friel - Dancing at Lughnasa

Non-fiction

• Dougal Dixon - Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future
• Michael Lynch - Scotland: A New History
• V. S. Naipaul - India: A Million Mutinies Now
• Raphael Patai - The Hebrew Goddess
• Ronald Reagan - An American Life
• Barry Siegel - A Death in White Bear Lake

Deaths

• February 24 – Malcolm Forbes, publisher
• May 10 – Walker Percy
• August 25 – Morley Callaghan, Canadian writer
• September 26 – Alberto Moravia, Italian writer
• October 23 – Louis Althusser, French Marxist philosopher
• November 8 – Anya Seton, author
• November 23 – Roald Dahl, author
• December 7 – Reinaldo Arenas, Cuban-American writer (b. 1943)
• December 14 – Friedrich Dürrenmatt, writer

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Octavio Paz

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Gillian Mears, The Mint Lawn
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Robert Adamson, The Clean Dark
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Robert Adamson, The Clean Dark
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Kristopher Rassemussen - In the Name of the Father

Canada

• See 1990 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Jean Rouaud, Les Champs d'honneur
• Prix Décembre: François Maspero, Les Passagers du Roissy–Express
• Prix Médicis French: Les Quartiers d'hiver – Jean-Noël Pancrazi
• Prix Médicis International: Amitav Ghosh,, Les feux du Bengale

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: A. S. Byatt, Possession: A Romance
• Cholmondeley Award: Kingsley Amis, Elaine Feinstein, Michael O’Neill
• Eric Gregory Award: Nicholas Drake, Maggie Hannan, William Park, Jonathan Davidson, Lavinia Greenlaw, Don Paterson, John Wells
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: William Boyd, Brazzaville Beach
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Claire Tomalin, The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Sorley Maclean
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Nicholas Mosley, Hopeful Monsters
• The Sunday Express Book of the Year: J. M. Coetzee, Age of Iron

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Debra Allbery, Walking Distance
• Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: W. S. Merwin
• Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Christopher Logue, Kings
• Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry: James Merrill, The Inner Room
• Caldecott Award: Ed Young, Lon Po Po: A Red–Riding Hood Story from China
• Compton Crook Award: Josepha Sherman, The Shining Falcon
• Frost Medal: Denise Levertov / James Laughlin
• Hugo Award for Best Novel: Dan Simmons for Hyperion
• National Book Award for Fiction: Charles Johnson for Middle Passage
• Nebula Award: Ursula K. Le Guin, Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Lois Lowry, Number the Stars
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: August Wilson, The Piano Lesson
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Oscar Hijuelos for The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Charles Simic: The World Doesn't End

Elsewhere

• Premio Nadal, Juan José Millás, La soledad era esto