1944 in literature
This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1944.
Events
- February 6 – The première of Jean Anouilh's tragedy Antigone takes place at the Théâtre de l'Atelier in Nazi-occupied Paris.
- May – The première of Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist drama Huis Clos is held at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Nazi-occupied Paris.
- June 1 and 5 – The first and second lines respectively of Paul Verlaine's 1866 poem Chanson d'automne are broadcast by the Allies over BBC Radio Londres among coded messages to the French Resistance to prepare for the D-Day landings.
- June
- *D-Day landings and Invasion of Normandy: The English soldier-poet Keith Douglas is killed; William Golding commands Landing Craft Tank 460 at Gold Beach; Vernon Scannell experiences the incident that gives rise to the poem "Walking Wounded" and is wounded; J. D. Salinger, having landed on Utah Beach, works on an early version of The Catcher in the Rye during lulls in the fighting; Dennis B. Wilson writes the poem that appears as Elegy of a Common Soldier in 2012; Kingsley Amis and John Wyndham serve as signallers; Alexander Baron's experiences of the invasion form the basis of his novel From the City, From the Plough.
- *The final edition of the Breton nationalist newspaper L'Heure Bretonne is published.
- August – With the Liberation of Paris, Jean Genet's novel Notre Dame des Fleurs can begin to circulate openly.
- September 14 – Laurence Olivier takes the title rôle in the production of Richard III that opens at The Old Vic in London.
- October – The contents of the Załuski Library are destroyed during the planned destruction of Warsaw by its Nazi occupiers.
- October 2
- *After a few months' internment at Drancy and Birkenau, Benjamin Fondane is one of 700 prisoners put to death in the gas chamber – the last such killings before Birkenau is evacuated. Upon selection, Fondane is heard joking about the irony of his misfortune.
- *Dylan Thomas is to be best man at the wedding of a friend and fellow Welsh poet, Vernon Watkins, in London, but fails to turn up.
- November 22 – The release in England of Laurence Olivier's Henry V makes it the first work of Shakespeare to be filmed in colour.
- November 23 – Arthur Miller's play The Man Who Had All the Luck has its Broadway première at the Forrest Theatre in New York City, but runs for only four performances.
- December 26 – Tennessee Williams' semi-autobiographical "memory play" The Glass Menagerie, adapted from a short story, premières at the Civic Theatre in Chicago.
- c. December – Günter Grass is conscripted into the Waffen-SS.
- The première of Pablo Picasso's play Desire Caught by the Tail is a private reading in Paris by the author that includes Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Valentine Hugo and Raymond Queneau directed by Albert Camus.
- The English actor-manager Geoffrey Kendal arrives in India for the first time with the Entertainments National Service Association, touring Patrick Hamilton's drama Gaslight; from 1947 Kendal's touring repertory company "Shakespeareana" will perform Shakespeare in towns and villages across India for some decades.
New books
Fiction
- Samuel Hopkins Adams – Canal Town
- Jorge Amado – Terras do Sem Fim
- Esther Averill – The Cat Club
- Vaikom Muhammad Basheer – Balyakalasakhi
- H. E. Bates – Fair Stood the Wind for France
- Saul Bellow – Dangling Man
- Jorge Luis Borges – Ficciones
- Christianna Brand – Green for Danger
- John Dickson Carr
- *Till Death Do Us Part
- *He Wouldn't Kill Patience
- Joyce Cary – The Horse's Mouth
- Louis-Ferdinand Céline – Guignol's Band
- Agatha Christie
- *Death Comes as the End
- *Towards Zero
- *Absent in the Spring
- Colette – Gigi
- Edmund Crispin – The Case of the Gilded Fly
- A. J. Cronin – The Green Years
- Esther Forbes – Johnny Tremain
- L. P. Hartley – The Shrimp and the Anemone
- John Hersey – A Bell for Adano
- Georgette Heyer – Friday's Child
- Charles R. Jackson – The Lost Weekend
- Kalki Krishnamurthy – Sivagamiyin Sapatham
- Pär Lagerkvist – Dvärgen
- Margaret Landon – Anna and the King of Siam
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh – The Steep Ascent
- H. P. Lovecraft – Marginalia
- Curzio Malaparte – Kaputt
- W. Somerset Maugham – The Razor's Edge
- Oscar Micheaux – The Case of Mrs. Wingate
- Alberto Moravia – Agostino
- Gunnar Myrdal – An American Dilemma
- Rafael Sabatini – King in Prussia
- Anna Seghers
- *Transit
- *"Der Ausflug der toten Mädchen"
- Anya Seton – Dragonwyck
- Clark Ashton Smith – Lost Worlds
- Eleanor Smith – Magic Lantern
- Howard Spring – Hard Facts
- Philip Van Doren Stern – The Greatest Gift
- Rex Stout – Not Quite Dead Enough
- Phoebe Atwood Taylor – Dead Ernest
- Donald Wandrei – The Eye and the Finger
- Henry S. Whitehead – Jumbee and Other Uncanny Tales
- Martin Wickremasinghe – Gamperaliya
- Kathleen Winsor – Forever Amber
Children and young people
- Esther Averill – The Cat Club
- Enid Blyton – The Island of Adventure
- Robert Bright – Georgie
- Alice Dalgliesh – The Silver Pencil
- Eleanor Estes – The Hundred Dresses
- Eric Linklater – The Wind on the Moon
- Feodor Rojankovsky – The Tall Book of Nursery Tales
- Margery Sharp – Cluny Brown
- Tasha Tudor - Mother Goose
Drama
- Jean Anouilh – Antigone
- Ugo Betti – :it:Corruzione al Palazzo di giustizia |Corruzione al Palazzo di giustizia
- Bertolt Brecht – The Caucasian Chalk Circle , written
- Daphne du Maurier – The Years Between
- Balwant Gargi – Lohākuṭ
- Philip King – See How They Run
- Max Otto Koischwitz – Vision of Invasion
- Esther McCracken – No Medals
- Terence Rattigan - Love In Idleness
- Lawrence Riley – Time to Kill
- Jean-Paul Sartre – No Exit
- John Van Druten – I Remember Mama
- Franz Werfel – Jacobowsky and the Colonel
- Tennessee Williams – The Glass Menagerie
Poetry
Non-fiction
Births
- Margaret Busby, Ghanaian-born British publisher
- Patrick O'Connell, Canadian poet
Deaths
- January 6 – Ida Tarbell, American journalist
- January 7 – Napoleon Lapathiotis, Greek lawyer and poet
- January 8 – Joseph Jastrow, Polish American psychologist
- January 15– Armand Praviel, French poet, novelist, and journalist
- January 31 – Jean Giraudoux, French dramatist
- February 10 – Israel Joshua Singer, Yiddish novelist
- February 12 – Olive Custance, English poet
- February 23 – Augusta Peaux, Dutch poet
- March 5
- *Max Jacob, French poet and critic
- *Alun Lewis, Welsh war poet
- March 11 – Irvin S. Cobb, American writer
- March 28 – Stephen Leacock, English-born Canadian humorous writer and economist
- May 3 – Anica Černej, Slovenian poet
- May 12
- *Max Brand, American Western, pulp fiction and screenwriter
- *Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, English author and critic
- May 16 – George Ade, American journalist and dramatist
- May 24 – Harold Bell Wright, American writer
- June – Joseph Campbell, Northern Irish poet
- June 9 – Keith Douglas, English war poet
- June 13 – Elizabeth Wharton Drexel, American socialite and author
- June 16 – Marc Bloch, French historian
- July 31 – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French pilot and writer
- August 13 – Ethel Lina White, Welsh-born English crime novelist
- September 4 – Margery Williams, English-born American children's writer
- September 13 – W. Heath Robinson, English cartoonist and illustrator
- October 2 – Benjamin Fondane, Romanian-born French poet, playwright and critic
- October 19 – Karel Poláček, Czech writer, humorist and journalist
- October 29 – Stephen Hudson, English novelist, translator and arts patron
- November 15 – Edith Durham, English travel writer
- December 17 – Robert Nichols, English poet and dramatist
- December 30 – Romain Rolland, French author and Nobel laureate
- David Vogel, Hebrew poet
Awards
- Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Eric Linklater, The Wind on the Moon
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Forrest Reid, Young Tom
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: C. V. Wedgwood, William the Silent
- Newbery Medal for children's literature: Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain
- Nobel Prize for literature: Johannes V. Jensen
- Premio Nadal : Carmen Laforet, Nada
- Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Stephen Vincent Benét, Western Star
- Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Martin Flavin, Journey in the Dark
- Shelley Memorial Award for Poetry: E. E. Cummings