Suvarna Garge (Editor)

1970 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1970.

Contents

Events

  • January 16 – The new Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus is inaugurated with a performance of Georg Büchner's Dantons Tod.
  • June 17 – Première of David Storey's play Home at the Royal Court Theatre, London, directed by Lindsay Anderson and starring Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson.
  • July 7 – Death of English publisher Sir Allen Lane (b. 1902). On August 21 his paperback imprint Penguin Books is acquired by Pearson.
  • August 27 – RSC production of A Midsummer Night's Dream: The Royal Shakespeare Company premieres its revolutionary production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Peter Brook, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, England.
  • November 20 – Playwright Fadil Paçrami becomes Chairman of the Parliament of Albania.
  • November 25 – In Tokyo, Japanese author and Tatenokai militia leader Yukio Mishima (45) and his followers take over the headquarters of the Japan Self-Defense Forces in an attempted coup d'état. After Mishima's speech fails to sway public opinion towards his right-wing politics, including restoration of the powers of the Emperor, he commits seppuku (public ritual suicide).
  • December 5 – Dario Fo premières his play Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Morte accidentale di un anarchico) at Varese in Italy.
  • Len Deighton's 1943-set Bomber, published this year in England, is the first novel written on a word processor, the IBM MT/ST.
  • Deliverance by American poet James Dickey published. In 2001, the book will be named as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the editorial board of the American Modern Library.
  • An unexpurgated edition of John Cleland's Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 1748-9) is published in the United Kingdom without legal challenge.
  • Bohumil Hrabal's books Domácí úkoly and Poupata are suppressed by the authorities in Czechoslovakia.

    • Fiction

  • Dritëro Agolli – Komisari Memo (Commissar Memo)
  • Poul Anderson – Tau Zero
  • Thomas Berger – Vital Parts
  • Thomas Bernhard – The Lime Works (Das Kalkwerk)
  • Pierre Berton – The National Dream
  • Jim Bouton – Ball Four
  • Melvyn Bragg – A Place in England
  • Wallace Breem – Eagle in the Snow
  • Jimmy Breslin – The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight
  • Taylor Caldwell – Great Lion of God
  • John Dickson Carr – The Ghosts' High Noon
  • Agatha Christie – Passenger to Frankfurt
  • Robertson Davies – Fifth Business
  • L. Sprague de Camp
  • The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales
  • Warlocks and Warriors (ed.)
  • Samuel R. Delany – The Fall of the Towers (trilogy)
  • Michel Déon – Les Poneys sauvages
  • James Dickey – Deliverance
  • José Donoso – The Obscene Bird of Night (El obsceno pájaro de la noche)
  • Lawrence Durrell – Nunquam
  • Vincent Eri – The Crocodile
  • Nuruddin Farah – From a Crooked Rib
  • J. G. Farrell – Troubles
  • Shirley Hazzard – The Bay of Noon
  • Anne Hébert – Kamouraska
  • Ernest Hemingway – Islands in the Stream
  • Susan Hill – I'm the King of the Castle
  • Pamela Hansford Johnson – The Honours Board
  • Uwe Johnson – Jahrestage (Anniversaries; begins publication)
  • Anna Kavan – Julia and the Bazooka
  • Jaan Kross – Between Three Plagues (part 1)
  • Halldór Laxness – Innansveitarkronika
  • Ira Levin – This Perfect Day
  • H. P. Lovecraft – The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions
  • John D. MacDonald – The Long Lavender Look
  • Eric Malpass – Oh My Darling Daughter
  • Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫) – The Decay of the Angel (天人五衰, Tennin Gosui; last in The Sea of Fertility tetralogy)
  • Brian Moore – Fergus
  • Toni Morrison – The Bluest Eye
  • Larry Niven – Ringworld
  • John Jay Osborn, Jr. – The Paper Chase
  • Mary Renault – Fire from Heaven
  • Kurban Said – Ali and Nino
  • Erich Segal – Love Story
  • Sidney Sheldon – The Naked Face
  • Clark Ashton Smith – Other Dimensions
  • Manuel Scorza – Drums for Rancas
  • Muriel Spark – The Driver's Seat
  • Mary Stewart – The Crystal Cave
  • Leon Uris – QB VII
  • Jack Vance – The Pnume
  • Gore Vidal – Two Sisters
  • Patrick White – The Vivisector
  • Venedikt Yerofeyev – Moscow-Petushki (Moscow to the End of the Line; samizdat publication)
  • Roger Zelazny – Nine Princes in Amber

    • Children and young people

  • Richard Bach – Jonathan Livingston Seagull
  • Nina Bawden – The Birds on the Trees
  • Judy Blume – Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret
  • John Burningham – Mr Gumpy's Outing
  • Betsy Byars – Summer of the Swans
  • John Christopher (Sam Youd) – The Guardians (science fiction)
  • Roald Dahl – Fantastic Mr Fox
  • Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen – The God Beneath the Sea
  • Ruth Manning-Sanders – A Book of Devils and Demons
  • Ruth Park
  • The Muddle-Headed Wombat in the Springtime
  • The Muddle-Headed Wombat on the River
  • Maurice Sendak – In the Night Kitchen
  • Isaac Bashevis Singer – A Day Of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw
  • E. B. White – The Trumpet Of The Swan
  • Bill Peet
  • The Wump World
  • The Whingdingdilly

    • Drama

  • Ama Ata Aidoo – Anowa
  • Robert Bolt – Vivat! Vivat Regina!
  • Dario Fo – Accidental Death of an Anarchist
  • Michael Frayn – The Two of Us (4 1-act plays)
  • Trevor Griffiths – Occupations
  • Christopher Hampton – The Philanthropist
  • Lorraine Hansberry – Les Blancs
  • Welcome Msomi – uMabatha
  • Terence Rattigan – A Bequest to the Nation
  • Anthony Shaffer – Sleuth
  • Alexander Vampilov – Duck Hunting («Утиная охота», Utinaya okhota, published; first performed 1976)
  • Derek Walcott – Dream on Monkey Mountain

    • Poetry

  • L. Sprague de Camp – Demons and Dinosaurs
  • Ted Hughes – Crow

    • Non-fiction

  • Theodor W. Adorno (posthumously) – Aesthetic Theory (Asthetische Theorie)
  • Dee Brown – Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
  • James MacGregor Burns – Roosevelt: The Soldier Of Freedom
  • Henri Charrière – Papillon
  • Edward De Bono – Lateral Thinking: creativity step by step
  • August Derleth – Thirty Years of Arkham House, 1939-1969: A History and Bibliography
  • Michel Foucault – Les Mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines (The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences)
  • Germaine Greer – The Female Eunuch
  • Helene Hanff – 84 Charing Cross Road
  • Arthur Janov – The Primal Scream
  • Christopher Lloyd – The Well-Tempered Garden
  • Norman Mailer – Of a Fire on the Moon
  • Dumas Malone – Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801-1805
  • Mahathir bin Mohamad – The Malay Dilemma
  • Kate Millet – Sexual Politics
  • Nancy Mitford – Frederick the Great
  • J. B. Priestley – The Edwardians
  • Albert Speer – Inside the Third Reich
  • Alvin Toffler – Future Shock

    • Births

  • January 1 – Alex Garland, English novelist
  • January 25 – Stephen Chbosky, American novelist and screenwriter
  • March 6 – Simona Vinci, Italian fiction writer
  • March 12 – Dave Eggers, American writer, editor and publisher
  • March 20 – Michele Jaffe, American author
  • May 20 – Dorthe Nors, Danish fiction writer
  • June 6 – Sarah Dessen, American novelist
  • September 10 – Phaswane Mpe, South African novelist (died 2004)
  • September 16 – Nick Sagan, American novelist and screenwriter
  • October 27 – Jonathan Stroud, English fantasy writer
  • November 7 – Chris Adrian, American novelist
  • November 24 – Marlon James, Jamaican novelist
  • November 27 – Han Kang, South Korean novelist
  • Unknown date – Nathan Englander, American short story writer

    • Deaths

  • January 10 – Charles Olson, American modernist poet (liver cancer, born 1910)
  • January 29 – B. H. Liddell Hart, English military historian (born 1895)
  • February 2 – Bertrand Russell, English philosopher (born 1872)
  • March 11 – Erle Stanley Gardner, American writer (born 1889)
  • March 21 – Marlen Haushofer, Austrian novelist (born 1920)
  • March 29 – Vera Brittain, English novelist, memoirist and poet (born 1893)
  • April 11 – John O'Hara, American novelist (cardiovascular disease, born 1905)
  • May 12 – Nelly Sachs, Jewish German poet and dramatist (born 1891)
  • June 2 – Giuseppe Ungaretti, Italian modernist poet and writer (born 1888)
  • June 7 – E. M. Forster, English novelist (born 1879)
  • June 16 – Elsa Triolet, French novelist (born 1896)
  • July 15 – Eric Berne, Canadian-born psychiatrist and author (heart attack, born 1910)
  • September 1 – François Mauriac, French novelist (born 1885)
  • September 28 – John Dos Passos, American novelist (born 1896)
  • November 23 – Alf Prøysen, Norwegian author, musician and children's writer (born 1914)
  • November 25 – Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫), Japanese author (seppuku, born 1925)
  • Unknown date – Racey Helps, English children's author and illustrator (born 1913)

    • Awards

  • Nobel Prize for Literature: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

    • Canada

  • See 1970 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

    • France

  • Prix Goncourt: Michel Tournier, Le Roi des Aulnes
  • Prix Médicis French: Camille Bourniquel, Sélinonte ou la Chambre impériale
  • Prix Médicis International: Luigi Malerba, Saut de la mort

    • United Kingdom

  • Booker Prize: Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member
  • Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen, The God Beneath the Sea
  • Cholmondeley Award: Kathleen Raine, Douglas Livingstone, Edward Brathwaite
  • Eric Gregory Award: Helen Frye, Paul Mills, John Mole, Brian Morse, Alan Perry, Richard Tibbitts
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Lily Powell, The Bird of Paradise
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston
  • Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Roy Fuller

    • United States

  • Hugo Award: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
  • Nebula Award: Larry Niven, Ringworld
  • Newbery Medal for children's literature: William H. Armstrong, Sounder
  • Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Charles Gordone, No Place To Be Somebody
  • Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Jean Stafford, Collected Stories
  • Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Howard, Untitled Subjects

    • Elsewhere

  • Miles Franklin Award: Dal Stivens, A Horse of Air
  • Premio Nadal: Jesús Fernández Santos, Libro de las memorias de las cosas
  • Viareggio Prize: Nello Saito, Dentro e fuori

    • References

    1970 in literature Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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