Suvarna Garge (Editor)

1970 in literature

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit

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


    Similar Topics
    ×