1960 in literature

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Last updated September 20, 2023

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1960.

Events

February–October – Astounding magazine is renamed Analog .
Spring – August Derleth launches the poetry magazine Hawk and Whippoorwill in the United States.
March 22 – Joan Henry's play Look on Tempests is premièred at the Comedy Theatre in London's West End, as the first play dealing openly with homosexuality to be passed for performance by the Lord Chamberlain in Britain.^[1]^[2]
April 27 – Harold Pinter's play The Caretaker is premièred at the Arts Theatre Club in London's West End, transferring to the Duchess Theatre the following month, where it runs for 444 performances before departing from London for Broadway, Pinter's first significant commercial success.^[3]^[4] Alan Bates and Donald Pleasence star in the original production.
July 11 – Harper Lee's Southern Gothic Bildungsroman To Kill a Mockingbird is published in the United States. She completes no later novel before her death in 2016.
August 12 – Green Eggs and Ham , by Dr. Seuss, is published in the United States; 40 years on it will be the fourth-best selling English-language children's hardcover book yet written.^[5]
September 5 – Welsh poet Waldo Williams is imprisoned for six weeks for non-payment of income tax (a protest against defence spending).^[6]
October 3 – The Lilly Library is opened on the campus of Indiana University Bloomington, based on the collections of Josiah K. Lilly Jr.
October 6 and December 16 – Dalton Trumbo, one of the Hollywood Ten, receives full screenwriting credit for his work on the films Spartacus and Exodus , released in the United States on these dates.
c. October – Vasily Grossman submits his novel Life and Fate (Жизнь и судьба) for publication, resulting in confiscation of the manuscript and all related material by the KGB in the Soviet Union.^[7]
November – Rita Rait-Kovaleva's Russian translation of The Catcher in the Rye is published in the Soviet literary magazine Inostrannaya Literatura as Над пропастью во ржи ("Over the Abyss in Rye").^[8]
November 2 – R v Penguin Books Ltd : Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity for publishing Lady Chatterley's Lover in the United Kingdom.^[9]
November 8 – Richard Wright delivers a polemical lecture, "The Situation of the Black Artist and Intellectual in the United States", to students and members of the American Church in Paris, a few weeks before his death in the city from heart attack aged 52.^[10]
November 10 – Lady Chatterley's Lover sells 200,000 copies in one day following its publication in the U.K. since being banned in 1928.^[11]
November 17 – Michael Foot is re-elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom and relinquishes the editorship of Tribune .
November 19 – American novelist Norman Mailer stabs his wife, the artist Adele Morales.^[12]
November 24 – Raymond Queneau founds Oulipo in France.
unknown dates
- Dutch mathematician Hans Freudenthal invents the artificial language Lincos, intended for communication with extraterrestrial intelligence.^[13]
- Francophone African scholar Djibril Tamsir Niane publishes the novelization Soundjata, ou l'Epopée du Manding in Paris, the first extended transcription of the 13th-century Epic of Sundiata from Mandinka oral tradition and its first translation into a Western language.^[14]

New books

Poetry

Douglas Livingstone – The Skull in the Mud
Sylvia Plath – The Colossus and Other Poems
Alan Sillitoe – The Rats and other poems

Non-fiction

Joy Adamson – Born Free ^[17]
Kingsley Amis – New Maps of Hell
Philippe Ariès – Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life (L'Enfant et la vie familiale sous l'Ancien Régime)
Peg Bracken – The I Hate to Cook Book
Albert Camus (died January 4) – Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (selected essays)
Jean-Paul Desbiens – Les Insolences du Frère Untel (The Insolences of Brother Anonymous)
Hans-Georg Gadamer – Truth and Method (Wahrheit und Methode)
John Howard Griffin – Black Like Me
Helen Keller – Light in my Darkness
Arthur Koestler – The Lotus and the Robot
Jessica Mitford – Hons and Rebels
A. S. Neill – Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing
Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier – The Morning of the Magicians (Le Matin des magiciens)
R. C. Majumdar – An Advanced History of India
Jean-Paul Sartre – Critique of Dialectical Reason (Critique de la raison dialectique)
William L. Shirer – The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
H. H. Smythe and M. M. Smythe – The New Nigerian Elite
W. T. Stace – The Teachings of the Mystics
Elie Wiesel – Night (La Nuit, 1958)

Births

January 18 – Mark Rylance, English actor and theater director
January 23 – André Verbart, Dutch poet
January 28 – Robert von Dassanowsky, Austrian-American historian and academic
January 31 – Grant Morrison, Scottish comic-book and graphic-novel scriptwriter
February 19 – Helen Fielding, English novelist and screenwriter
March 8 – Jeffrey Eugenides, American fiction writer
April 28 – Ian Rankin, Scottish crime novelist
April 29 – Andrew Miller, English novelist
May 4 – Kate Saunders, English author and children's writer
May 21 – John O'Brien, American novelist (died 1994)
May 24 - Eric Brown, British science fiction writer (died 2023)
June 2 – Julie Myerson, English novelist and columnist
July 13 – Ian Hislop, Welsh-born satirist
August 4 – Tim Winton, Australian novelist
October 2 – Joe Sacco, Maltese-born graphic author
October 18 – Hồ Anh Thái, Vietnamese author
November 10 – Neil Gaiman, English author
December 10 – Kenneth Branagh, Northern Irish actor and screenwriter
unknown dates
- Malcolm Pryce, Anglo-Welsh detective novelist
- Alexis Stamatis, Greek novelist, playwright and poet^[18]
- D. J. Taylor, English literary critic and biographer

Deaths

January 4 – Albert Camus, French Pied-Noir novelist (car accident, born 1913)
January 9 – Elsie J. Oxenham (Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley), English girls' story writer (born 1880)
January 12 – Nevil Shute, English-born novelist (stroke, born 1899)
January 14 – Ralph Chubb, English poet, printer and artist (born 1892)
January 28 – Zora Neale Hurston, African-American anthropologist and author (born 1891)
May 30 – Boris Pasternak, Russian novelist, poet and translator (born 1890)
July 27
- Leonora Eyles, English feminist writer and novelist (born 1889)
- Ethel Lilian Voynich, Anglo-Irish novelist and composer (born 1864)
July 28 – Kassian Bogatyrets, Rusyn priest, politician and historian (born 1868)
August 19 – Frances Cornford, English poet (born 1886)
August 29 – Vicki Baum, Austrian-born novelist writing in German and English (born 1888)
October 19 – Hjalmar Dahl, Finnish journalist, translator and writer (born 1891)^[19]
October 31 – H. L. Davis, American fiction writer and poet (born 1894)
November 20 – Ya'akov Cohen, Russian-born Israeli poet (born 1881)
November 28 – Richard Wright, African-American novelist and poet (born 1908)
December 26 – Tetsuro Watsuji (和辻哲郎), Japanese philosopher and historian of ideas (born 1889)

Awards

American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Criticism: E. B. White
Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Ian Wolfran Cornwall, The Making of Man ^[20]
Eric Gregory Award: Christopher Levenson
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Rex Warner, Imperial Caesar
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Canon Adam Fox, The Life of Dean Inge
Kate Greenaway Medal: Gerald Rose, Old Winkle and the seagulls^[20]
Miles Franklin Award: Elizabeth O'Conner, The Irishman
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Joseph Krumgold, Onion John
Nobel Prize for literature: Saint-John Perse
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Jerome Weidman, George Abbott for book, Jerry Bock for music, and Sheldon Harnick for lyrics, Fiorello!
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Allen Drury, Advise and Consent
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: W. D. Snodgrass, Heart's Needle
Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: John Betjeman

References

↑ De Jongh, Nicholas (1992). Not in Front of the Audience: Homosexuality on stage . Routledge. pp. 119–122. ISBN 0-415-03362-4.
↑ Pouteau, Jacques (25 March 1960). "London Sees Play of Type Formerly Banned". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on 2012-01-25. Retrieved 2010-10-30.
↑ Galens, David M., ed. (2000). "Overview: The Caretaker". Drama for Students. Literature Resource Center. Vol. 7. Detroit: Gale. Retrieved 2012-09-04.
↑ "The Caretaker – Première". HaroldPinter.org. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
↑ "All-Time Bestselling Children's Books". Publishers Weekly. 2001-12-17. Archived from the original on 2005-12-25.
↑ "Welsh Nationalist Sent to Prison". The Times . No. 54869. London. 1960-09-06. p. 6.
↑ Chandler, Robert (1985). Introduction to Life and Fate. New York Review of Books Classics. p. xv.
↑ "Salinger's 'Catcher In The Rye' Resonated Behind Iron Curtain As Well". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty . Retrieved 2015-06-18.
↑ Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
↑ Cedric J. Robinson (12 October 2005). Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. Univ of North Carolina Press. p. 405. ISBN 978-0-8078-7612-1.
↑ "Lady Chatterley's Lover sold out". On This Day. BBC. 1960-11-10. Archived from the original on 2008-03-07. Retrieved 2008-02-11.
↑ "Norman Mailer Arrested in Stabbing of Wife at a Party". The New York Times . 1960-11-22. Retrieved 2013-10-31.
↑ Semiotica. Mouton Publishers. 1995. p. 84.
↑ Professor Emeritus Phyllis M Martin; Phyllis M. Martin; Patrick O'Meara (1995). Africa. Indiana University Press. p. 310. ISBN 0-253-20984-6.
↑ Gary Westfahl (2005). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 457. ISBN 978-0-313-32952-4.
↑ Hahn, Daniel (2015). The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (2nd ed.). Oxford. University Press. p. 10. ISBN 9780198715542.
↑ Haines, Catharine M. C. (2001). International Women in Science: A Biographical Dictionary to 1950. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-57607-090-1.
↑ Stamatis, Alexis (2007). Bar Flaubert. Arcadia. ISBN 978-1-900850-57-5.
↑ Hjalmar Dahl – Svenskt översättarlexikon (in Swedish)
1 2 Library Association (1956). Proceedings, Papers and Summaries of Discussions at the ... Conference. p. 8.

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[1] De Jongh, Nicholas (1992). Not in Front of the Audience: Homosexuality on stage . Routledge. pp. 119–122. ISBN 0-415-03362-4.

[2] Pouteau, Jacques (25 March 1960). "London Sees Play of Type Formerly Banned". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on 2012-01-25. Retrieved 2010-10-30.

[3] Galens, David M., ed. (2000). "Overview: The Caretaker". Drama for Students. Literature Resource Center. Vol. 7. Detroit: Gale. Retrieved 2012-09-04.

[4] "The Caretaker – Première". HaroldPinter.org. Retrieved 2009-05-28.

[5] "All-Time Bestselling Children's Books". Publishers Weekly. 2001-12-17. Archived from the original on 2005-12-25.

[6] "Welsh Nationalist Sent to Prison". The Times . No. 54869. London. 1960-09-06. p. 6.

[7] Chandler, Robert (1985). Introduction to Life and Fate. New York Review of Books Classics. p. xv.

[8] "Salinger's 'Catcher In The Rye' Resonated Behind Iron Curtain As Well". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty . Retrieved 2015-06-18.

[9] Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.

[10] Cedric J. Robinson (12 October 2005). Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. Univ of North Carolina Press. p. 405. ISBN 978-0-8078-7612-1.

[11] "Lady Chatterley's Lover sold out". On This Day. BBC. 1960-11-10. Archived from the original on 2008-03-07. Retrieved 2008-02-11.

[12] "Norman Mailer Arrested in Stabbing of Wife at a Party". The New York Times . 1960-11-22. Retrieved 2013-10-31.

[13] Semiotica. Mouton Publishers. 1995. p. 84.

[14] Professor Emeritus Phyllis M Martin; Phyllis M. Martin; Patrick O'Meara (1995). Africa. Indiana University Press. p. 310. ISBN 0-253-20984-6.

[15] Gary Westfahl (2005). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 457. ISBN 978-0-313-32952-4.

[16] Hahn, Daniel (2015). The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (2nd ed.). Oxford. University Press. p. 10. ISBN 9780198715542.

[17] Haines, Catharine M. C. (2001). International Women in Science: A Biographical Dictionary to 1950. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-57607-090-1.

[18] Stamatis, Alexis (2007). Bar Flaubert. Arcadia. ISBN 978-1-900850-57-5.

[19] Hjalmar Dahl – Svenskt översättarlexikon (in Swedish)

[Association1956-20] 1 2 Library Association (1956). Proceedings, Papers and Summaries of Discussions at the ... Conference. p. 8.

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1960 in literature

Contents

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama