Kalpana Kalpana (Editor)

1955 in literature

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1955 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1955.

Contents

Events

  • April 16 – U.K. theatrical release of Sir Laurence Olivier's film version of Shakespeare's Richard III.
  • July 10 – Jorge Luis Borges is appointed Director of the National Library of the Argentine Republic.
  • July 14 – Director Stephen Joseph establishes Britain's first theatre in the round at Scarborough, North Yorkshire, predecessor of the Stephen Joseph Theatre.
  • July 30 – English poet Philip Larkin, having taken up the post of University Librarian at the University of Hull in March, makes a train journey from Hull to Grantham which inspires his poem The Whitsun Weddings. His collection The Less Deceived is published in November (dated October).
  • August 3 – English language premiere of Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot, directed by Peter Hall, opens at the Arts Theatre, London.
  • August 27 – First hardback edition of The Guinness Book of Records published in London.
  • September – Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is published in Paris; however, it takes until 1958 to be published in the United States.
  • November – Frank Herbert's first novel, The Dragon in the Sea, begins its 3-part serialization as Under Pressure in the monthly Astounding Science-Fiction.
  • November 28 – Ray Lawler's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll receives its stage première by the Union Theatre Repertory Company in Melbourne with the playwright in a leading rôle; this is influential as the first authentically naturalistic modern drama in the theatre of Australia.
  • Jean Cocteau is elected to both the Académie française (March 3; inducted October 20) and the Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (January 8; inducted October 1).
  • An article in the British Journal of Education criticises the novels of Enid Blyton as formula fiction.
  • Guru Mani Madhava Chakyar performs Koodiyattam outside the temple for the first time.

    • Fiction

  • Kingsley Amis – That Uncertain Feeling
  • Isaac Asimov
  • The End of Eternity
  • The Martian Way and Other Stories
  • Elisabeth Augustin – Labyrinth (Auswege)
  • Antoine Blondin – L'Humeur vagabonde
  • Leigh Brackett – The Long Tomorrow
  • Ray Bradbury – The October Country
  • Henry Cecil – Brothers in Law
  • Louis-Ferdinand Céline – Conversations with Professor Y (Entretiens avec le professeur Y)
  • Agatha Christie – Hickory Dickory Dock
  • Arthur C. Clarke – Earthlight
  • Ivy Compton-Burnett – Mother and Son
  • Thomas B. Costain – The Tontine
  • Marco Denevi – Rosaura a las 10 (Rosaura at 10 O'Clock)
  • Patrick Dennis – Auntie Mame
  • John Dickson Carr – Captain Cut-Throat
  • J. P. Donleavy – The Ginger Man
  • Friedrich Dürrenmatt – Once a Greek (Grieche sucht Griechin)
  • Ian Fleming – Moonraker
  • Franquin – La Corne de rhinocéros
  • William Gaddis – The Recognitions
  • David Garnett – Aspects of Love
  • William Golding – The Inheritors
  • Graham Greene
  • The Quiet American
  • Loser Takes All
  • Henri René Guieu
  • L'Agonie du Verre
  • Commandos de l'Espace
  • Univers parallèles
  • Robert A. Heinlein – Tunnel in the Sky
  • Georgette Heyer – Bath Tangle
  • Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr. Ripley
  • Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp – Tales of Conan
  • Aldous Huxley – The Genius and the Goddess
  • Mac Hyman – No Time for Sergeants
  • Dan Jacobson – The Trap
  • Robin Jenkins – The Cone Gatherers
  • Ruth Prawer Jhabvala – To Whom She Will
  • MacKinlay Kantor – Andersonville
  • Nikos Kazantzakis – The Last Temptation of Christ (O Teleutaios Peirasmos)
  • Yaşar Kemal – Memed, My Hawk (İnce Memed)
  • Józef Mackiewicz
  • Droga donikąd (The Road to Nowhere)
  • Karierowicz
  • Alistair Maclean – HMS Ulysses
  • Norman Mailer – The Deer Park
  • Gabriel García Márquez
  • The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor (Relato de un náufrago)
  • Leaf Storm (La Hojarasca)
  • J. J. Marric – Gideon's Day
  • Brian Moore – The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
  • Vladimir Nabokov – Lolita
  • Flannery O'Connor
  • Good Country People
  • A Good Man Is Hard To Find
  • John O'Hara – Ten North Frederick
  • Pier Paolo Pasolini – Ragazzi di vita
  • Anthony Powell – The Acceptance World
  • Marin Preda – Moromeții, Vol. 1
  • Barbara Pym – Less than Angels
  • Alain Robbe-Grillet – Le Voyeur
  • Robert Ruark – Something of Value
  • Juan Rulfo – Pedro Páramo
  • Françoise Sagan – Bonjour Tristesse (English translation)
  • 'Michael Scarrott' (A. S. T. Fisher) – Ambassador of Loss
  • Isaac Bashevis Singer – Satan in Goray
  • Rex Stout – Before Midnight
  • Jim Thompson – After Dark, My Sweet
  • Morton Thompson – Not As a Stranger
  • J. R. R. Tolkien – The Lord of the Rings : The Return of the King
  • Evelyn Waugh – Officers and Gentlemen
  • Patrick White – The Tree of Man
  • Leonard Wibberley – The Mouse That Roared
  • Sloan Wilson – The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
  • Herman Wouk – Marjorie Morningstar
  • John Wyndham – The Chrysalids

    • Children and young people

  • Paul Berna – Le Cheval sans tête (Horse without a Head, translated as A Hundred Million Francs)
  • Crockett Johnson – Harold and the Purple Crayon
  • C. S. Lewis – The Magician's Nephew
  • William Mayne – A Swarm in May
  • Janet McNeill – My Friend Specs McCann
  • Iona and Peter Opie – The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book
  • Philippa Pearce – Minnow on the Say
  • Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings – The Secret River (posthumous)
  • Barbara Sleigh – Carbonel: The King of the Cats
  • Catherine Storr – Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf
  • E. C. Spykman – A Lemon and a Star
  • Patricia Wrightson – The Crooked Snake
  • Eva-Lis Wuorio – Return of the Viking

    • Drama

  • Enid Bagnold – The Chalk Garden
  • Samuel Beckett – Waiting for Godot (English version)
  • Bertolt Brecht – Trumpets and Drums (Pauken und Trompeten; adaptation of Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer (1706))
  • Alice Childress – Trouble in Mind
  • William Inge – Bus Stop
  • Eugène Ionesco
  • Jack, or The Submission (Jacques ou la soumission)
  • The New Tenant (Le Nouveau locataire)
  • Kol Jakova – Toka jonë (Our Land)
  • Ray Lawler – Summer of the Seventeenth Doll
  • Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee – Inherit the Wind
  • Arthur Miller
  • A View from the Bridge (one-act verse version)
  • A Memory of Two Mondays
  • Reginald Rose – Twelve Angry Men (stage version)
  • Jean-Paul Sartre – Nekrassov
  • Ariano Suassuna – O Auto da Compadecida (The Compassionate Self)
  • Thornton Wilder
  • The Matchmaker
  • A Life in the Sun
  • Tennessee Williams – Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
  • Carl Zuckmayer – The Cold Light (Das kalte Licht)

    • Poetry

  • Philip Larkin – The Less Deceived
  • R.S. Thomas – Song at the Year's Turning

    • Non-fiction

  • Richard Aldington – Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Inquiry
  • James Baldwin – Notes of a Native Son
  • Ivan Bunin – About Chekhov
  • Thomas E. Gaddis – Birdman of Alcatraz
  • Robert Graves – The Greek Myths
  • The Guinness Book of Records, 1st edition
  • T. E. Lawrence (352087 A/c Ross; died 1935) – The Mint: A day-book of the R.A.F. Depot between August and December 1922, with later notes (written 1928; 1st trade edition)
  • C. S. Lewis – Surprised by Joy
  • Walter Lippmann – Essays in the Public Philosophy
  • Walter Lord – A Night to Remember
  • Herbert Marcuse – Eros and Civilization
  • Alan Marshall – I Can Jump Puddles
  • Garrett Mattingly – Renaissance Diplomacy
  • Meher Baba – God Speaks
  • J. H. Plumb – Studies in Social History
  • RAND – A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates

    • Births

  • January 11 – Max Lucado, American religious writer
  • January 12 – Rockne S. O'Bannon, American writer and producer
  • January 13 – Jay McInerney, American novelist
  • January 27 – Alexander Stuart, English-born American novelist and screenwriter
  • February 2 – Leszek Engelking, Polish poet, fiction writer and translator
  • February 8 – John Grisham, American novelist
  • February 17 – Mo Yan, Chinese fiction writer
  • March 19 – John Burnside, Scottish poet and fiction writer
  • March 23 – Lloyd Jones, New Zealand novelist
  • March 27 – Patrick McCabe, Irish novelist
  • April 8 – Barbara Kingsolver, American novelist, essayist and poet
  • May 30 – Colm Tóibín, Irish novelist, playwright and poet
  • June 4 – Val McDermid, Scottish crime novelist
  • June 16 – J. Jill Robinson, Canadian fiction writer
  • June 20 – Tor Nørretranders, Danish science author
  • July 1
  • Candia McWilliam, Scottish fiction writer
  • Lisa Scottoline, American writer of legal thrillers
  • July 5 – Mia Couto (António Emílio Leite Couto), Mozambican writer
  • July 6
  • Michael Boyd, British theatre director
  • William Wall, Irish author and poet
  • August 2 – Caleb Carr, American writer
  • August 7 – Vladimir Sorokin, Russian writer
  • September 6 – Raymond Benson, American novelist
  • September 13 – Hiromi Itō (伊藤 比呂美), Japanese poet, essayist and translator
  • October 19 – Jason Shinder, American poet and editor (died 2008)
  • November 12 – Katharine Weber, American author and academic
  • November 23 – Steven Brust, American fantasy author
  • December 28 – Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波), Chinese critic, writer and activist
  • Unknown date – Wang Xiaoni (王小妮), Chinese poet

    • Deaths

  • January 20 – Robert P. Tristram Coffin, American poet, essayist and novelist (born 1892)
  • February 23 – Paul Claudel, French poet, dramatist and diplomat (born 1868)
  • April 10 – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French philosopher and essayist (born 1881)
  • May 16 – James Agee, American writer (born 1909)
  • June 6 – Joseph Jefferson Farjeon, English crime writer (born 1883)
  • June 17 – Constance Holme, English novelist and dramatist (born 1880)
  • June 19 – Adrienne Monnier, French poet and publisher (born 1892)
  • June 21 – Roger Mais, Jamaican novelist (born 1905)
  • June 30 – Gilbert Cannan, British writer (born 1884)
  • July 3 – Beatrice Chase, English writer (born 1874)
  • August 1 – Charles Shaw, Australian writer (born 1900)
  • August 2 – Wallace Stevens, American poet (born 1879)
  • August 12 – Thomas Mann, German novelist (born 1875)
  • August 14 – Herbert Putnam, American Librarian of Congress (born 1861)
  • August 29 – Hong Shen (洪深), Chinese dramatist (born 1894)
  • September 20 – Robert Riskin, American dramatist and screenwriter (born 1897)
  • October 18 – José Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher (born 1883)
  • November 1 – Dale Carnegie, American writer (born 1888)
  • November 12 – Tin Ujević, Croatian poet (born 1891)
  • November 14
  • Ruby M. Ayres, English romance novelist (born 1881)
  • Robert E. Sherwood, American playwright (born 1896)
  • December – Al. T. Stamatiad, Romanian poet (born 1885)

    • Awards

  • Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Eleanor Farjeon, The Little Bookroom
  • Frost Medal: Leona Speyer
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Ivy Compton-Burnett, Mother and Son
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: R. W. Ketton-Cremer, Thomas Gray
  • Newbery Medal for children's literature: Meindert DeJong, The Wheel on the School
  • Nobel Prize for Literature: Halldór Kiljan Laxness
  • Premio Nadal: Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, El Jarama
  • Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
  • Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: William Faulkner, A Fable
  • Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Wallace Stevens, Collected Poems
  • Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Ruth Pitter

    • In literature

  • Ian McEwan's novel The Innocent (1990)
  • Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's novel Cancer Ward (1967)
  • Colin Wilson's novel Adrift in Soho (1961)
  • Richard Yates's novel Revolutionary Road (1961)

    • References

    1955 in literature Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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