1956 in literature

Events

c. January – First book in Ed McBain's long-running 87th Precinct police procedural series, Cop Hater, is published in the United States under Evan Hunter's new pseudonym.

February 2 – Eugene O'Neill's semi-autobiographical drama Long Day's Journey into Night (completed 1942) receives its posthumous world première at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm, in Swedish (as Lång dags färd mot natt) in a production directed by Bengt Ekerot and starring Lars Hanson. The play's Broadway debut takes place at the Helen Hayes Theatre on November 7, shortly after its American premiere at the Shubert Theatre (New Haven).

February 27 – English poet Ted Hughes and American poet Sylvia Plath meet in Cambridge, England.

March 11 – U.S. release of Sir Laurence Olivier's film version of Shakespeare's Richard III simultaneously on NBC network television and as afternoon matinée screenings in movie theaters, giving it a television audience estimated at between 25 and 40 million, almost certainly the largest up to this date for a Shakespearean production.

March 19 – Widowed English author Aldous Huxley marries Italian American film-maker and author Laura Archera at a drive-in wedding chapel in Yuma, Arizona.

April 23 – C. S. Lewis and Joy Gresham make a civil marriage at Oxford register office.

May 8 – First performance of John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger by the newly formed English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Alan Bates has his first major role as Cliff. The theatre's press release describes the dramatist as among the angry young men of the time, a plural phrase which appears on July 26 in a Daily Express headline.

June 16 – Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath marry at St George the Martyr, Holborn in the London Borough of Camden.

June 26 & August 23 – Books published by discredited psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich are burned in the United States under court injunction.

June – Nineteen-year-old Hunter S. Thompson is arrested as an accessory to robbery.

July – Following pleas by Israeli diplomats, the Romanian communist regime releases A. L. Zissu, formally sentenced to life imprisonment in 1954. Zissu emigrates to Israel, where he dies on September 6.

July 4 – The National Library of Scotland's first purpose-built premises are opened in Edinburgh.

July 8 – The drama series Armchair Theatre, produced by ABC Television for the ITV network in the United Kingdom, begins its run (1956–1968).

July 29 – Arthur Miller marries Marilyn Monroe in White Plains, New York.

August 14 – Iris Murdoch marries John Bayley at Oxford register office.

September 14 – Harold Pinter marries Vivien Merchant in a civil ceremony at Bournemouth, having met while touring in repertory theatre.

October – The Ladder becomes the first nationally distributed lesbian magazine in the United States.

November 1 – Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems, a signal work of the Beat Generation, is published by City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.

December – Martin Gardner begins his Mathematical Games column in Scientific American.

December 3 – Writing under the pseudonym of Emile Ajar, author Romain Gary becomes the only person ever to win the Prix Goncourt twice, this time for Les Racines du ciel.

Finished in 1952, Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy (Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street), is first published.

Sixteen-year-old Michael Moorcock becomes editor of Tarzan Adventures.

Jorge Luis Borges becomes a professor of English and American literature at the University of Buenos Aires.

Fiction

Kingsley Amis – That Uncertain Feeling

Poul Anderson – Planet of No Return

Isaac Asimov – The Naked Sun

James Baldwin – Giovanni's Room

Sybille Bedford – A Legacy

Saul Bellow – Seize the Day

Pierre Berton – The Mysterious North

Alfred Bester – The Stars My Destination (as Tiger! Tiger!)

W. E. Bowman – The Ascent of Rum Doodle

Pearl S. Buck – Imperial Woman

Anthony Burgess – Time for a Tiger

Albert Camus – The Fall (La Chute)

John Dickson Carr

Patrick Butler for the Defense

Fear is the Same (as by Carter Dickson)

Agatha Christie – Dead Man's Folly

Arthur C. Clarke – The City and the Stars

A. J. Cronin

A Thing of Beauty

Crusader's Tomb

Antonio di Benedetto – Zama

Philip K. Dick

The Man Who Japed

The Minority Report

Gordon R. Dickson

Alien From Arcturus

Mankind on the Run

Alfred Döblin – Tales of a Long Night (Hamlet oder Die lange Nacht nimmt ein Ende)

Friedrich Dürrenmatt – A Dangerous Game (Die Panne – The Breakdown – or Traps)

Ian Fleming – Diamonds Are Forever

Naomi Frankel – Shaul ve-Yohannah (שאול ויוהאנה, "Saul and Joanna", publication begins)

Romain Gary – Les Racines du ciel

William Golding – Pincher Martin

Henri René Guieu – Les Monstres du Néant

Mark Harris – Bang the Drum Slowly

Frank Herbert – The Dragon in the Sea (first book publication)

Georgette Heyer – Sprig Muslin

Kathryn Hulme – The Nun's Story

Feri Lainšček – Petelinji zajtrk

C. S. Lewis – Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold

Rose Macaulay – The Towers of Trebizond

Ed McBain – Cop Hater

Naguib Mahfouz – Palace Walk (بين القصرين, Bein el-Qasrein, first of the Cairo Trilogy)

Grace Metalious – Peyton Place

Nicholas Monsarrat – The Tribe that Lost its Head

Farley Mowat – Lost in the Barrens

Agnar Mykle – The Song of the Red Ruby (Sangen om den røde rubin)

Edwin O'Connor – The Last Hurrah

Pier Paolo Pasolini – Ragazzi di vita

Mervyn Peake – Boy in Darkness

Mary Renault – The Last of the Wine

Kenneth Roberts – Boon Island

João Guimarães Rosa – The Devil to Pay in the Backlands (Grande Sertão: Veredas)

Françoise Sagan – A Certain Smile (Un certain Sourire)

Samuel Selvon – The Lonely Londoners

Irwin Shaw – Lucy Crown

Khushwant Singh – Train to Pakistan

Rex Stout

Might as Well Be Dead

Three Witnesses

A. E. van Vogt – The Wizard of Linn

Heimito von Doderer – Die Dämonen: Nach der Chronik des Sektionsrates Geyrenhoff (The Demons)

Angus Wilson – Anglo-Saxon Attitudes

P. G. Wodehouse – French Leave

Kateb Yacine – Nedjma

Eiji Yoshikawa (吉川 英治) – The Heike Story: A Modern Translation of the Classic Tale of Love and War (Shin Heike monogatari, a retelling of The Tale of the Heike)

Children and young people

Polly Cameron – The Cat Who Thought He Was A Tiger

Fred Gipson – Old Yeller

Rumer Godden – The Fairy Doll

C. S. Lewis – The Last Battle

Alf Prøysen – Little Old Mrs Pepperpot (first in a long series of Mrs Pepperpot – Teskjekjerringa – books)

Maurice Sendak – Kenny's Window

Ian Serraillier – The Silver Sword

Dodie Smith – The Hundred and One Dalmatians

Eve Titus – Anatole (first in the Anatole and Basil series of 14 books)

Drama

Jean Anouilh – Pauvre Bitos, ou Le dîner de têtes (Poor Bitos)

Ferdinand Bruckner – The Fight with the Angel (Der Kampf mit dem Engel)

José Manuel Castañón – Moletú-Volevá

Friedrich Dürrenmatt – The Visit (Der Besuch der alten Dame)

Max Frisch – Philipp Hotz's Fury (Die Grosse Wut des Philipp Hotz)

Hugh Leonard – The Birthday Party

Saunders Lewis – Siwan

Bruce Mason – The Pohutukawa Tree

Arthur Miller – A View from the Bridge (revised version)

Yukio Mishima – Rokumeikan

Heiner Müller and Inge Müller – Der Lohndrücker (The Scab, written)

Eugene O'Neill – Long Day's Journey into Night

John Osborne – Look Back in Anger

Arnold Wesker – Chicken Soup with Barley (written)

Poetry

Allen Ginsberg – Howl

Anne Morrow Lindbergh – The Unicorn and Other Poems

Harry Martinson – Aniara

Yevgeny Yevtushenko – Stantsiia Zima (Станция Зима, Zima Station, translated as Winter Station)

Non-fiction

John G. Bennett – Dramatic Universe

Gerald Durrell – My Family and Other Animals

Margery Fish – We Made a Garden

Carl Gustav Jung – Mysterium Coniunctionis

A. J. Liebling – The Sweet Science

Norman Mailer – The White Negro

Octavio Paz – El arco y la lira

Lobsang Rampa – The Third Eye

Births

January 2 – Storm Constantine, British science fiction and fantasy author

January 8 – Jack Womack, American novelist

March 7 – Andrea Levy, English novelist

March 12 – Ruth Ozeki, American novelist and filmmaker

March 23 – Steven Saylor, American historical novelist

May 4 – David Guterson, American journalist and novelist

May 18 – John Godber, English dramatist

May 20 – Boris Akunin, Russian novelist and essayist

June 9 – Patricia Cornwell, American crime novelist

July 4 – Éric Neuhoff, French novelist

July 11 – Amitav Ghosh, Bengali Indian novelist

October 9 – Robert Reed, American science fiction author

October 13 – Chris Carter, American screenwriter

November 26 – John McCarthy, English journalist and hostage

Unknown dates

James Belich, New Zealand historian

Percival Everett, American writer and novelist

Amy Gerstler, American poet

Alexander Jablokov, American writer and novelist

Deaths

January 13 – Wickham Steed, English journalist, editor and historian (born 1871)

January 14 – Sheila Kaye-Smith, English novelist (born 1887)

January 29 – H. L. Mencken, American journalist and English language scholar (born 1880)

January 31 – A. A. Milne, English children's author, novelist and dramatist (born 1882)

March 30 – Edmund Clerihew Bentley, English novelist and inventor of the clerihew (born 1875)

May 20 – Max Beerbohm, English humorist (born 1872)

May 22 – Ion Călugăru, Romanian novelist, short story writer and journalist (born 1902)

June 22 – Walter de la Mare, English poet (born 1873)

June 24 – Nicos Nicolaides, Greek writer (born 1884)

July 8 – Giovanni Papini, Italian essayist, poet and novelist (born 1881)

August 14 – Bertolt Brecht, German dramatist (born 1898)

September 6

Michael Ventris, English linguistic scholar (born 1922)

A. L. Zissu, Romanian novelist and Zionist leader (born 1888)

October 30 – Pío Baroja, Spanish novelist (born 1872)

December 13 – Arthur Grimble, Hong Kong-born English travel writer (born 1888)

December 25 – Robert Walser, Swiss novelist and poet writing in German (born 1878)

Awards

Carnegie Medal for children's literature: C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle

Deutscher Jugendbuchpreis (first award): Roger Duvoisin and Louise Fatio, Happy Lion (Der glückliche Löwe); Astrid Lindgren, Mio, My Son; and Kurt Lütgen, Kein Winter für Wölfe ("Two Against the Arctic: Story of a Restless Life between Greenland and Alaska")

Duff Cooper Prize: Alan Moorehead, Gallipoli

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: St John Greer Ervine, George Bernard Shaw

Newbery Medal for children's literature: Jean Lee Latham, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

Nobel Prize for literature: Juan Ramón Jiménez

Premio Nadal: José Luis Martín Descalzo, La frontera de Dios

Prix Goncourt: Romain Gary for The Roots of Heaven

Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich, Diary of Anne Frank

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: MacKinlay Kantor – Andersonville

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Elizabeth Bishop: Poems – North & South

Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Edmund Blunden