1955 in literature


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

Events

Uncertain dates

Fiction


  • Arthur Adamov – Le Ping-Pong
  • Enid Bagnold – The Chalk Garden
  • Samuel Beckett – Waiting for Godot
  • Bertolt Brecht – Trumpets and Drums
  • João Cabral de Melo Neto – Morte e Vida Severina
  • Alice Childress – Trouble in Mind
  • John Dighton – Man Alive!
  • Sonnie Hale – The French Mistress
  • William Inge – Bus Stop
  • Eugène Ionesco
  • *Jack, or The Submission
  • *The New Tenant
  • Kol Jakova – Toka jonë
  • Ray Lawler – Summer of the Seventeenth Doll
  • Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee – Inherit the Wind
  • Philip Mackie – The Whole Truth
  • Arthur Miller
  • *A View from the Bridge
  • *A Memory of Two Mondays
  • J.B. Priestley – Mr. Kettle and Mrs. Moon
  • Reginald Rose – Twelve Angry Men
  • Jean-Paul Sartre – Nekrassov
  • Ariano Suassuna – O Auto da Compadecida
  • Orson Welles – Moby Dick—Rehearsed
  • Thornton Wilder
  • *The Matchmaker
  • *A Life in the Sun
  • Tennessee Williams – Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
  • Carl Zuckmayer – The Cold Light

    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
  • Frank Barlow – The Feudal Kingdom of England
  • Ivan Bunin – About Chekhov
  • G. D. H. Cole – Studies in Class Structure
  • Thomas E. Gaddis – Birdman of Alcatraz
  • Antonio Gramsci – Gli intellettuali e l'organizzazione della cultura
  • Robert Graves – The Greek Myths
  • The Guinness Book of Records, 1st edition
  • Morris K. Jessup – The Case for the UFO
  • R. K. Kelsall – Higher Civil Servants in Britain
  • T. E. Lawrence – The Mint: A day-book of the R.A.F. Depot between August and December 1922, with later notes
  • 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
  • Donald J. West – Homosexuality

    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
  • April 30 – Zlatko Topčić, Bosnian author and screenwriter
  • May 13 – Mark Abley, Canadian poet and non-fiction writer
  • 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
  • *Sebastian Barry, Irish novelist, playwright and poet
  • *Mia Couto, Mozambican fiction writer and poet
  • July 6
  • *Michael Boyd, British theatre director
  • *William Wall, Irish author and poet
  • July 12 – Robin Robertson, Scottish-born poet, novelist and editor
  • August 2 – Caleb Carr, American writer
  • August 7 – Vladimir Sorokin, Russian writer
  • August 8 – Iain Pears, English writer
  • September 6 – Raymond Benson, American novelist
  • September 13 – Hiromi Itō, Japanese poet, essayist and translator
  • October 19 – Jason Shinder, American poet and editor
  • November 12 – Katharine Weber, American author and academic
  • November 23 – Steven Brust, American fantasy author
  • December 28 – Liu Xiaobo, Chinese critic, writer and activist
Uncertain dates