1957 in literature


This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1957.

Events

Uncertain dates

Fiction


  • Samuel Beckett – Endgame and Act Without Words I ; All That Fall and From an Abandoned Work
  • Emilio Carballido – El censo
  • Christopher Fry – The Dark is Light Enough
  • Jean Genet – The Balcony
  • Günter Grass – Flood
  • Graham Greene – The Potting Shed
  • William Inge – The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
  • Errol John – Moon on a Rainbow Shawl
  • John Osborne
  • *The Entertainer
  • *Epitaph for George Dillon
  • Harold Pinter – The Dumb Waiter
  • N. F. Simpson – The Resounding Tinkle
  • Wole Soyinka – The Invention
  • Boris Vian – Les Bâtisseurs d'Empire
  • Tennessee Williams
  • *Baby Doll
  • *Orpheus Descending

    Poetry

  • Robert E. Howard – Always Comes Evening
  • Ted Hughes – The Hawk in the Rain
  • Pier Paolo Pasolini – Le ceneri di Gramsci
  • Octavio Paz – Piedra de Sol
  • Jibanananda Das – Rupasi Bangla
  • Robert Penn Warren – Promises: Poems, 1954–1956. Won National Book Award for Poetry – Won 1958 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

    Non-fiction

  • B. R. Ambedkar – The Buddha and His Dhamma
  • G. E. M. Anscombe – Intention
  • Catherine Drinker Bowen – The Lion and the Throne: The Life and Times of Sir Edward Coke. Won 1958 National Book Award for Nonfiction
  • Gerald Brenan – South from Granada: Seven Years in an Andalusian Village
  • M. Đilas – The New Class
  • Will Durant – The Reformation. Nominated for National Book Award for Nonfiction
  • Elisabeth Elliot – Through Gates of Splendor
  • Charles Evans – Kangchenjunga: The Untrodden Peak
  • Douglas Southall Freeman – George Washington: A Biography. Won 1958 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Nominated for National Book Award for Nonfiction
  • Northrop Frye – Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays
  • Louis M. Hacker – Alexander Hamilton in the American. Nominated for National Book Award for Nonfiction
  • Bray Hammond – Banks and Politics in America. Won 1958 Pulitzer Prize for History
  • Gilbert Highet – Poets in a Landscape. Nominated for 1958 National Book Award for Nonfiction
  • Richard Hoggart – The Uses of Literacy
  • Eric John Holmyard – Alchemy
  • Stuart Holroyd – Emergence from Chaos
  • Ernst Kantorowicz – The King's Two Bodies
  • Henry Kissinger – Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. Nominated for National Book Award for Nonfiction
  • Primo Levi – If This Is a Man
  • Art Linkletter – Kids Say the Darndest Things
  • Christopher Lloyd – The Mixed Border
  • Mary McCarthy – Memories of a Catholic Girlhood. Nominated for National Book Award for Nonfiction
  • Tom Maschler – Declaration
  • Eliot Ness and Oscar FraleyThe Untouchables
  • Iris Origo – The Merchant of Prato
  • Walt Whitman Rostow & Max F. Milliken – A Proposal: Key to an Effective Foreign Policy. Nominated for National Book Award for Nonfiction
  • Jean-Paul Sartre – Search for a Method
  • David Schoenbrun – As France Goes. Nominated for National Book Award for Nonfiction
  • Rodolfo Walsh – Operación Masacre
  • Ian Watt – The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding
  • K. A. Wittfogel – Oriental Despotism

    Births

  • January 16 – Stella Tillyard, English writer and historian
  • January 22 – Francis Wheen, English journalist and author
  • January 27 – Frank Miller, American comic-book cartoonist and scriptwriter
  • February 11 – Mitchell Symons, English writer and journalist
  • March 3 – Nicholas Shakespeare, English novelist and biographer
  • March 7 – Robert Harris, English novelist and current-affairs writer
  • March 23 – Ananda Devi, Mauritian francophone fiction writer and poet
  • March 26 – Paul Morley, English music journalist
  • March 29 – Elizabeth Hand, American science fiction and fantasy writer
  • April 3
  • *Rainer Karlsch, German historian
  • *Unni Lindell, Norwegian novelist
  • May 17 – Peter Høeg, Danish novelist
  • May 23 – Craig Brown, English satirist
  • June 8 – Scott Adams, American satirist
  • July 29 – Liam Davison, Australian novelist
  • August 24 – Stephen Fry, English comedy performer, broadcast presenter and writer
  • September 22 – Nick Cave, Australian author and musician
  • November 14 – Michael J. Fitzgerald, American technical writer
  • December 3 – Anne B. Ragde, Norwegian novelist
  • December 11 – William Joyce, American children's author
  • December 12 – Robert Lepage, Canadian playwright
  • unknown dates
  • *Peter Armstrong, English poet and psychotherapist
  • *John Doyle, Irish-born Canadian critic
  • *Ana Santos Aramburo, Spanish national librarian
  • *Melanie Rae Thon, American author

    Deaths

  • January 10
  • *Gabriela Mistral, Chilean poet
  • *Laura Ingalls Wilder, American novelist
  • January 13 – A. E. Coppard, English short story writer and poet
  • January 19 – Barbu Lăzăreanu, Romanian literary historian, poet, and communist journalist
  • February 10 – Laura Ingalls Wilder, American author
  • March 9 – Rhoda Power, English children's writer and broadcaster
  • March 12 – John Middleton Murry, English critic
  • March 28 – Christopher Morley, American journalist, novelist and poet
  • March 29 – Joyce Cary, Irish novelist
  • April 22 – Roy Campbell, South African poet and satirist
  • June 17
  • *May Edginton, English popular novelist
  • *Dorothy Richardson, English novelist and journalist
  • June 27 – Malcolm Lowry, English novelist and poet
  • July 19 – Curzio Malaparte, Italian novelist, playwright, and journalist
  • July 21 – Kenneth Roberts, American historical novelist
  • July 23 – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Italian novelist
  • August 25 – Leo Perutz, Austrian-born novelist and mathematician
  • September 2 – William Craigie, Scottish lexicographer
  • November 8 – Ernest Elmore, English crime writer and theatre director
  • November 24 – Alfred Eckhard Zimmern, German-born English historian and political scientist
  • December 15 – Mulshankar Mulani, Gujarati playwright
  • December 17 – Dorothy L. Sayers, English crime novelist
  • December 24 – Arturo Barea, Spanish journalist, broadcaster and writer

    Awards

  • Carnegie Medal for children's literature: William Mayne, A Grass Rope
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Anthony Powell, At Lady Molly's
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Maurice Cranston, Life of John Locke
  • Miles Franklin Award: Patrick White, Voss
  • Newbery Medal for children's literature: Virginia Sorenson, Miracles on Maple Hill
  • Nobel Prize for Literature: Albert Camus
  • Premio Nadal: Carmen Martín Gaite, Entre visillos
  • Prix Goncourt: Roger Vailland, La Loi
  • Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night
  • Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: no award given
  • Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Wilbur: Things of This World
  • Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Siegfried Sassoon