1958 in literature
This article is a summary of the literary events and publications of 1958.
Events
- January 7 – Tennessee Williams' one-act plays Suddenly, Last Summer and Something Unspoken are premièred off-Broadway.
- January 13 – In One, Inc. v. Olesen, the Supreme Court of the United States affirms that homosexual writing is not as such obscene.
- March 29 – The stage première of Max Frisch's dark comedy Biedermann und die Brandstifter takes place at the Schauspielhaus Zürich.
- April 28 – The première of Harold Pinter's play The Birthday Party is held at the Cambridge Arts Theatre in England, with Richard Pearson playing the lead as Stanley.
- May 19 – The London début of the production of Pinter's The Birthday Party, starring Richard Pearson, takes place at the Lyric Opera House. It closes after a week, but its reputation is saved by a review by Harold Hobson in The Sunday Times on May 25.
- May 27 – The 19-year-old Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey is staged by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in London. Littlewood has received the script with a covering letter stating "A fortnight ago I didn't know the theatre existed".
- Spring/Summer – London publishers Faber introduce their paper-covered editions, including T. S. Eliot's Collected Poems, William Golding's Lord of the Flies, J. W. Dunne's An Experiment with Time and the first of several science fiction anthologies edited by Edmund Crispin, all with covers designed by Berthold Wolpe based on the Albertus typeface.
- August 18 – Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in the United States.
- c. September – Herbert Marcuse begins teaching at Brandeis University, Massachusetts.
- October 14 – Brendan Behan's play The Hostage is first performed in an English version by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in London. Also this year, Behan's autobiographical Borstal Boy is published in London, and on November 12 it is banned in Ireland by the Censorship of Publications Board.
- October 23 – Announcement of the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Boris Pasternak leads to denunciation of him in the Soviet Union and threats to expel him.
- October 28 – Samuel Beckett's monologue Krapp's Last Tape is first performed by Patrick Magee at the Royal Court Theatre, London. Also this year, Beckett's novel The Unnamable is first published in English.
- November – Truman Capote's novella Breakfast at Tiffany's is published in this month's Esquire magazine. It appears soon afterwards as the title story in a collection published by Random House in New York City.
- The first volume of Shelby Foote's military history is published in the United States.
- Rumours spread of a library ban on Enid Blyton's books in New Zealand.
- Jack Kerouac writes and narrates the "beat" movie, Pull My Daisy.
- Ken Kesey is awarded a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship to enrol in the creative writing program at Stanford University.
- Mervyn Peake begins to develop Parkinson's disease.
New books
Fiction
- Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart
- Kingsley Amis – I Like It Here
- Jorge Amado – Gabriela, Cravo e Canela
- Louis Aragon – La Semaine Sainte
- Chingiz Aytmatov – Jamila
- H. E. Bates – The Darling Buds of May
- Samuel Beckett – The Unnamable
- Thomas Berger – Crazy in Berlin
- John Bingham – Murder Plan Six
- James Blish – A Case of Conscience
- Joseph Payne Brennan – Nine Horrors and a Dream
- Algis Budrys
- *Man of Earth
- *Who?
- Dino Buzzati – Sessanta racconti
- Truman Capote – Breakfast at Tiffany's
- John Dickson Carr – The Dead Man's Knock
- Rosario Castellanos – Balún-Canán
- Raymond Chandler – Playback
- Agatha Christie – Ordeal by Innocence
- Richard Condon – The Oldest Confession
- A. J. Cronin
- *The Innkeeper's Wife
- *The Northern Light
- L. Sprague de Camp – An Elephant for Aristotle
- Patrick Dennis – Around the World with Auntie Mame
- August Derleth
- *The Mask of Cthulhu
- *The Return of Solar Pons
- Marguerite Duras – Moderato Cantabile
- Lawrence Durrell
- *Balthazar
- *Mountolive
- Nawal El Saadawi – Memoirs of a Woman Doctor
- Ian Fleming – Dr. No
- C. S. Forester – Hornblower in the West Indies
- Carlos Fuentes – Where the Air Is Clear
- Peter George – Red Alert
- Julien Gracq – Un Balcon en forêt
- Graham Greene – Our Man in Havana
- Cyril Hare – He Should Have Died Hereafter
- Marlen Haushofer – We Murder Stella
- Georgette Heyer – Venetia
- Harold L. Humes – The Underground City
- Hammond Innes – The Land God Gave to Cain
- Rona Jaffe – The Best of Everything
- Anna Kavan – A Bright Green Field and Other Stories
- Jack Kerouac – The Dharma Bums
- Audrey Erskine Lindop– I Thank a Fool
- Frances Parkinson Keyes – Victorine
- Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa – The Leopard
- Manuel Lopes – O Galo Que Cantou na Baía
- John D. MacDonald – The Executioners
- Ross Macdonald – The Doomsters
- Richard Matheson – A Stir of Echoes
- Alberto Moravia – Two Women
- M. T. Vasudevan Nair – Naalukettu
- R. K. Narayan – The Guide
- Kenzaburō Ōe – Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids
- Barbara Pym – A Glass of Blessings
- Jean Raspail – Welcome, Honourable Visitors
- Mary Renault – The King Must Die
- Anya Seton – The Winthrop Woman
- Alan Sillitoe – Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
- Terry Southern – Candy
- Rex Stout
- *And Four to Go
- *Champagne for One
- Yves Thériault – Agaguk
- Zaim Topčić – Lump of Sun
- Robert Traver – Anatomy of a Murder
- Leon Uris – Exodus
- Jack Vance – The Languages of Pao
- Rex Warner – Young Caesar
- Jerome Weidman – The Enemy Camp
- Angus Wilson – The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot
- S. Yizhar – Days of Ziklag
Children and young people
- Raymond Abrashkin and Jay Williams – Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine
- Enid Blyton – Five Get into a Fix
- Michael Bond – A Bear Called Paddington
- Bruce Carter – The Kidnapping of Kensington
- Anne de Vries – The New Day
- Rumer Godden – The Greengage Summer
- E. W. Hildick – Jim Starling
- A. A. Milne, Latin by Alexander Lenard – Winnie ille Pu
- Elyne Mitchell – The Silver Brumby
- Philippa Pearce – Tom's Midnight Garden
- Keith Robertson – Henry Reed Inc.
- Dr. Seuss – Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories
- Elizabeth George Speare – The Witch of Blackbird Pond
- William O. Steele – The Perilous Road
- Catherine Storr – Marianne Dreams
- Rosemary Sutcliff – Warrior Scarlet
- Nigel Tranter – Spaniard's Isle
- Henry Treece – The Children's Crusade
- T. H. White – The Once and Future King
Drama
- Samuel Beckett – Krapp's Last Tape
- Brendan Behan – The Hostage
- Bertolt Brecht – The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
- Refik Erduran – Bir Kilo Namus
- Max Frisch – The Fire Raisers
- Jean Genet – The Blacks: A Clown Show
- Kenneth Horne – Wolf's Clothing
- N.C. Hunter – A Touch of the Sun
- Ann Jellicoe – The Sport of My Mad Mother
- Ronald Millar – The Big Tickle
- Sławomir Mrożek – The Police
- Heiner Müller and Inge Müller
- *Die Korrektur
- *Der Lohndrücker
- Mohan Rakesh – Ashadh Ka Ek Din
- Barry Reckord – Flesh to a Tiger
- Elmer Rice – Cue for Passion
- Peter Shaffer – Five Finger Exercise
- N. F. Simpson – The Hole
- Wole Soyinka – The Swamp Dwellers
- Derek Walcott – Drums and Colours
- Arnold Wesker – Chicken Soup with Barley
- Tennessee Williams – Suddenly, Last Summer
Poetry
Non-fiction
Births
- Robert Antoni, West Indian novelist
- Lionel Fogarty, indigenous Australian poet
- James Robertson, Scottish writer
- Margaret Smith, American poet
- Nega Mezlekia, Ethiopian writer
Deaths
- February 4 – Henry Kuttner, American science fiction author
- February 6 – Charles Langbridge Morgan, English novelist and dramatist
- March 15 – Michael Joseph, English publisher
- March 17 – Margiad Evans, Anglo-Welsh writer and poet
- March 21 – Cyril M. Kornbluth, American science fiction writer
- March 24 – Seumas O'Sullivan, Irish poet
- April 7 – Elliot Paul, American writer
- April 8 – Ethel Turner, English-born Australian novelist and children's author
- May 5 – James Branch Cabell, American fantasy author
- June 4 – Eleanor Hallowell Abbott, American fiction writer and poet
- June 10 – Angelina Weld Grimké, African-American playwright and poet
- June 28 – Alfred Noyes, English poet
- August 6 – Geoffrey Willans, English novelist and comic writer
- August 29 – Marjorie Flack, American author and illustrator
- September 11 – Robert W. Service, English-born Canadian comic poet
- October 24 – G. E. Moore, English philosopher
- October 30 – Rose Macaulay, English novelist
- November 9 – Dorothy Canfield Fisher, American activist and novelist
- December 8
- *Nicolae Petrescu-Comnen, Romanian social scientist, historian and poet
- *Peig Sayers, Irish seanchaí
- December 20 – J. C. Squire, English writer and critic
Awards
- Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Philippa Pearce, Tom's Midnight Garden
- Hugo Award for Best Novel: Fritz Leiber, The Big Time
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Angus Wilson, The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Joyce Hemlow, The History of Fanny Burney
- Miles Franklin Award: Randolph Stow, To the Islands
- Newbery Medal for children's literature: Harold Keith, Rifles for Watie
- Newdigate prize: Jon Stallworthy
- Nobel Prize in literature: Boris Pasternak
- Premio Nadal: J. Vidal Cadellans, No era de los nuestros
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Ketti Frings, Look Homeward, Angel
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: James Agee, A Death In The Family
- Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Penn Warren, Promises: Poems 1954-1956