1970 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1970.

Events

• January 16 – The Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus opens with a performance of Georg Büchner's Dantons Tod . ^[1]
• March – Magdalena Mouján's story "Gu ta Gutarrak" ("We and Ours") in Basque is suppressed by the authorities in Francoist Spain. ^[2]
• June 10 – The English novelist Anthony Burgess delivers an inflammatory lecture, "Obscenity and the Arts", at the University of Malta; its reception leads to him leaving Malta. ^[3] He has begun a novel that will become Earthly Powers (1980).
• June 17 – The première of David Storey's play Home at the Royal Court Theatre, London, is directed by Lindsay Anderson and stars Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson. ^[4]
• August 21 – The Penguin Books paperback imprint is acquired by Pearson PLC, following the death of its owner Sir Allen Lane. ^[5]
• August 27 – Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company introduces a revolutionary production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Peter Brook, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. ^[6]
• November 20 – The playwright Fadil Paçrami becomes Chairman of the Parliament of Albania. ^[7]
• November 25 – In Tokyo, the Japanese author and Tatenokai militia leader Yukio Mishima (三島由紀夫, 45) and others take over the headquarters of the Japan Self-Defense Forces in an attempted coup d'état. Mishima commits seppuku (public ritual suicide) when he fails to sway the public to his right-wing politics, which include restoring the powers of the Emperor.
• December 5 – Dario Fo premières his play Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Morte accidentale di un anarchico) at Varese in Italy.
• unknown dates
  • Len Deighton's Bomber , set on June 31 [sic.] 1943, becomes the first published novel to have been written on a word processor, an IBM MT/ST. ^[8]
  • The novel Deliverance by the American poet James Dickey is published; it will go on to be named among the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by an editorial board of the American Modern Library. ^[9]
  • An unexpurgated edition of John Cleland's Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 1748–1749) appears in the U.K. without legal challenge. ^[10]
  • Bohumil Hrabal's books Domácí úkoly (Home Work) and Poupata (Buds) are suppressed by the communist authorities in Czechoslovakia.

New books

Fiction

• Dritëro Agolli – Komisari Memo (Commissar Memo)
• Poul Anderson – Tau Zero
• Abdelhamid ben Hadouga - The South Wind (novel)
• Thomas Berger – Vital Parts
• Thomas Bernhard – The Lime Works (Das Kalkwerk)
• Melvyn Bragg – A Place in England
• John Braine – Stay with Me Till Morning
• Wallace Breem – Eagle in the Snow ^[11]
• Jimmy Breslin – The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight
• Agatha Christie – Passenger to Frankfurt
• Robertson Davies – Fifth Business
• L. Sprague de Camp
  • The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales
  • Warlocks and Warriors (ed.)
• Samuel R. Delany – The Fall of the Towers (trilogy)
• Michel Déon – Les Poneys sauvages
• James Dickey – Deliverance
• Joan Didion – Play It as It Lays
• José Donoso – The Obscene Bird of Night (El obsceno pájaro de la noche)
• Lawrence Durrell – Nunquam
• Vincent Eri – The Crocodile
• Nuruddin Farah – From a Crooked Rib
• J. G. Farrell – Troubles
• Juan Goytisolo – Count Julian (Reivindicación del conde don Julián)
• Pierre Guyotat - Eden, Eden, Eden (Éden, Éden, Éden)
• L. P. Hartley – My Sisters' Keeper
• Anne Hébert – Kamouraska
• Ernest Hemingway – Islands in the Stream
• Susan Hill – I'm the King of the Castle
• Pamela Hansford Johnson – The Honours Board
• Anna Kavan – Julia and the Bazooka
• Jaan Kross – Between Three Plagues (part 1)
• Halldór Laxness – Innansveitarkronika
• Ira Levin – This Perfect Day
• Mario Levrero – La ciudad
• H. P. Lovecraft – The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions
• Peter Lovesey – Wobble to Death
• John D. MacDonald – The Long Lavender Look
• Eric Malpass – Oh My Darling Daughter
• Ngaio Marsh – When in Rome
• Yukio Mishima (三島由紀夫) – The Decay of the Angel (天人五衰, Tennin Gosui; last in The Sea of Fertility tetralogy)
• Brian Moore – Fergus
• Toni Morrison – The Bluest Eye
• Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk – Harpoon of the Hunter (ᐊᖑᓇᓱᑦᑎᐅᑉ ᓇᐅᒃᑯᑎᖓ)
• Larry Niven – Ringworld
• John Jay Osborn, Jr. – The Paper Chase
• Abel Posse – Los bogavantes
• Mary Renault – Fire from Heaven
• Kurban Said – Ali and Nino
• Erich Segal – Love Story
• Sidney Sheldon – The Naked Face
• Clark Ashton Smith – Other Dimensions
• Manuel Scorza – Drums for Rancas
• Muriel Spark – The Driver's Seat
• Mary Stewart – The Crystal Cave
• Alan Sillitoe – A Start in Life
• Leon Uris – QB VII
• Jack Vance – The Pnume
• Gore Vidal – Two Sisters
• Patrick White – The Vivisector
• Venedikt Yerofeyev – Moscow-Petushki (Moscow to the End of the Line; samizdat publication)
• Roger Zelazny – Nine Princes in Amber

Children and young people

• Lloyd Alexander – The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian ^[12]
• Rev. W. Awdry – Duke the lost Engine (twenty-fifth in The Railway Series of 42 books by him and his son Christopher Awdry)
• Richard Bach – Jonathan Livingston Seagull
• Nina Bawden – The Birds on the Trees
• Judy Blume – Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret ^[13]
• John Burningham – Mr Gumpy's Outing
• Betsy Byars – Summer of the Swans
• John Christopher (Sam Youd) – The Guardians (science fiction)
• Roald Dahl – Fantastic Mr Fox ^[14]
• Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen – The God Beneath the Sea
• Judith Kerr – Mog the Forgetful Cat (first in the Mog series of 17 books)
• Ruth Manning-Sanders – A Book of Devils and Demons
• Dr. Seuss – Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? ^[15]
• Ruth Park
  • The Muddle-Headed Wombat in the Springtime
  • The Muddle-Headed Wombat on the River
• Bill Peet
  • The Whingdingdilly
  • The Wump World
• Maurice Sendak – In the Night Kitchen
• Isaac Bashevis Singer – A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw
• E. B. White – The Trumpet Of The Swan
• Annette Tison and Talus Taylor - Barbapapa

Drama

• Ama Ata Aidoo – Anowa
• Robert Bolt – Vivat! Vivat Regina!
• Dario Fo – Accidental Death of an Anarchist
• Michael Frayn – The Two of Us (4 1-act plays)
• Trevor Griffiths – Occupations
• Christopher Hampton – The Philanthropist
• Lorraine Hansberry – Les Blancs
• Welcome Msomi – uMabatha
• Terence Rattigan – A Bequest to the Nation
• Anthony Shaffer – Sleuth
• Alexander Vampilov – Duck Hunting (Утиная охота, Utinaya okhota, published; first performed 1976)
• Derek Walcott – Dream on Monkey Mountain

Poetry

Main article: 1970 in poetry

• L. Sprague de Camp – Demons and Dinosaurs
• Ted Hughes – Crow

Non-fiction

• Theodor W. Adorno (posthumously) – Aesthetic Theory (Asthetische Theorie)
• Hannah Arendt – On Violence
• Roland Barthes – S/Z
• Pierre Berton – The National Dream
• Jim Bouton – Ball Four
• Dee Brown – Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
• James MacGregor Burns – Roosevelt: The Soldier Of Freedom
• Henri Charrière – Papillon
• Elizabeth David – Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen
• Edward De Bono – Lateral Thinking: creativity step by step
• August Derleth – Thirty Years of Arkham House, 1939-1969: A History and Bibliography
• Michel Foucault – Les Mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines(The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences)
• Germaine Greer – The Female Eunuch
• Helene Hanff – 84 Charing Cross Road
• Arthur Janov – The Primal Scream
• Uwe Johnson – Anniversaries. From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl (Jahrestage: Aus dem Leben von Gesine Cresspahl; begins publication)
• Hal Lindsey – The Late Great Planet Earth
• Christopher Lloyd – The Well-Tempered Garden
• Norman Mailer – Of a Fire on the Moon
• Dumas Malone – Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801-1805
• Mahathir Mohamad – The Malay Dilemma
• Kate Millett – Sexual Politics
• Nancy Mitford – Frederick the Great
• Robin Morgan (ed.) – Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement
• Harold Perkin – The Age of the Railway
• J. B. Priestley – The Edwardians
• Albert Speer – Inside the Third Reich
• Alvin Toffler – Future Shock

Births

• January 25 – Stephen Chbosky, American novelist and screenwriter
• February 28 – Daniel Handler, American novelist
• March 6 – Simona Vinci, Italian fiction writer
• March 12 – Dave Eggers, American writer, editor and publisher
• March 20 – Michele Jaffe, American author
• March 26 – Martin McDonagh, British-born Irish playwright
• May 20 – Dorthe Nors, Danish fiction writer
• May 26 – Alex Garland, English novelist
• June 6 – Sarah Dessen, American novelist
• July 22 – Doug Johnstone, Scottish crime fiction writer
• August 27 - Ann Aguirre, American speculative fiction writer
• September 10 – Phaswane Mpe, South African novelist (died 2004)
• September 16 – Nick Sagan, American novelist and screenwriter
• October 27 – Jonathan Stroud, English fantasy writer
• November 7 – Chris Adrian, American novelist
• November 24 – Marlon James, Jamaican novelist
• November 27 – Han Kang, South Korean novelist
• December 21 – Mohamedou Ould Salahi, Mauritanian author and former Guantánamo detainee
• unknown dates
  • Raja'a Alem, Saudi Arabian writer ^[16]
  • Roberta Dapunt, Italian poet ^[17]
  • Nathan Englander, American novelist and short story writer ^[18]
  • Neel Mukherjee, Indian novelist ^[19]
  • Faruk Šehić, Bosnian poet and fiction writer

Deaths

• January 10 – Charles Olson, American modernist poet (liver cancer, born 1910)
• January 29 – B. H. Liddell Hart, English military historian (born 1895)
• February 2 – Bertrand Russell, English philosopher (born 1872) ^[20]
• February 4 – Louise Bogan, American poet (born 1897) ^[21]
• February 20 – Sophie Treadwell, American dramatist and journalist (born 1885) ^[22]
• February 21 – Johannes Semper, Estonian writer, translator and politician (born 1892) ^[23]
• March 11 – Erle Stanley Gardner, American writer (born 1889) ^[24]
• March 15 – Arthur Adamov, Russian-French playwright (born 1908) ^[25]
• March 21 – Marlen Haushofer, Austrian novelist (born 1920)
• March 29 – Vera Brittain, English novelist, memoirist and poet (born 1893) ^[26]
• April 11 – John O'Hara, American novelist (cardiovascular disease, born 1905) ^[27]
• May 7 – Jack Jones, Welsh novelist (born 1884) ^[28]
• May 12 – Nelly Sachs, Jewish German poet and dramatist (born 1891) ^[29]
• June 2 – Giuseppe Ungaretti, Italian modernist poet and writer (born 1888)
• June 3 – Ruth Sawyer, American children's writer and novelist (born 1880)
• June 7 – E. M. Forster, English novelist (born 1879) ^[30]
• June 16 – Elsa Triolet, French novelist (born 1896) ^[31]
• July 7 – Allen Lane, English publisher (born 1902) ^[32]
• July 15 – Eric Berne, Canadian-born psychiatrist and author (heart attack, born 1910)
• September 1 – François Mauriac, French novelist (born 1885) ^[33]
• September 25 – Erich Maria Remarque, German novelist (All Quiet On The Western Front) (born 1898) ^[34]
• September 28 – John Dos Passos, American novelist (born 1896) ^[35]
• October 18 – Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Irish language writer (born 1906) ^[36]
• November 23 – Alf Prøysen, Norwegian author, musician and children's writer (born 1914) ^[37]
• November 25 – Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫), Japanese author (seppuku, born 1925) ^[38]
• unknown date – Racey Helps, English children's author and illustrator (born 1913)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Canada

• See 1970 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Michel Tournier, Le Roi des Aulnes
• Prix Médicis French: Camille Bourniquel, Sélinonte ou la Chambre impériale
• Prix Médicis International: Luigi Malerba, Saut de la mort

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen, The God Beneath the Sea
• Cholmondeley Award: Kathleen Raine, Douglas Livingstone, Edward Brathwaite
• Eric Gregory Award: Helen Frye, Paul Mills, John Mole, Brian Morse, Alan Perry, Richard Tibbitts
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Lily Powell, The Bird of Paradise
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Roy Fuller

United States

• Hugo Award: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
• Nebula Award: Larry Niven, Ringworld
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: William H. Armstrong, Sounder
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Charles Gordone, No Place To Be Somebody ^[39]
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Jean Stafford, Collected Stories
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Howard, Untitled Subjects

Elsewhere

• Alfaguara Prize: Carlos Droguett, Todas esas muertes
• Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Alva Myrdal and Gunnar Myrdal (together)
• Miles Franklin Award: Dal Stivens, A Horse of Air ^[40]
• Premio Nadal: Jesús Fernández Santos, Libro de las memorias de las cosas
• Viareggio Prize: Nello Saito, Dentro e fuori

Notes

• Hahn, Daniel (2015). The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (2nd ed.). Oxford. University Press. ISBN   9780198715542.

References

1. "Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus" (in German). nrw-buehnen.de. Archived from the original on 2014-02-23. Retrieved 2013-07-19.
2. Michael Ashley (2000). The History of the Science-fiction Magazine. Liverpool University Press. p. 411. ISBN   978-1-84631-003-4.
3. "Anthony Burgess's censorship scandal in Malta: a timeline". International Anthony Burgess Foundation. Retrieved 21 August 2020.
4. Genzlinger, Neil (8 December 2006). "Alighting in the Confines of a Lonely Cuckoo's Nest". The New York Times.
5. Munroe, Mary H. (2004). "Pearson Timeline". The Academic Publishing Industry: A Story of Merger and Acquisition. Archived from the original on 2014-10-20 – via Northern Illinois University.
6. Barnes, Clive (1970-08-28). "Historic Staging of Dream". The New York Times . Retrieved 2010-06-23.
7. Avatars of Intellectuals Under Communism. Zeta Books. 2011. p. 81. ISBN   9786068266145.
8. Kirschenbaum, Matthew (2013-03-01). "The Book-Writing Machine: What was the first novel ever written on a word processor?". Slate . Retrieved 20 August 2020.
9. "100 Best Novels". Modern Library. 1998.
10. John Sutherland (1983). Offensive Literature: Decensorship in Britain, 1960-1982. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 39–. ISBN   978-0-389-20354-4.
11. Mench, Fred (2003). "Maximus to the Rescue". Archaeology. 56 (5): 60 – via EBSCOhost.
12. Hahn 2015, p.14
13. Hahn 2015, p. 76
14. Hahn 2015, p, 199
15. Barone, Diane M. (8 March 2011). Children's Literature in the Classroom: Engaging Lifelong Readers. Guilford Press. p. 67. ISBN   978-1-60623-940-7.
16. "Raja Alem: "All my life, i tried to break the frame"". KAWA. 20 November 2017. Retrieved 21 August 2020.
17. "Roberta Dapunt, info e libri dell'autore. Giulio Einaudi Editore". Einaudi (in Italian). Retrieved 22 August 2020.
18. "Nathan Englander". American Academy in Berlin. Retrieved 21 August 2020.
19. "Neel Mukherjeewebsite=Royal Society of Literature" . Retrieved 21 August 2020.
20. Mehra, Jagdish; Rechenberg, Helmut (28 December 2000). The Historical Development of Quantum Theory. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 44. ISBN   978-0-387-95178-2.
21. Eric L. Haralson (21 January 2014). Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century. Routledge. p. 96. ISBN   978-1-317-76322-2.
22. Louise Heck-Rabi (1976). Sophie Treadwell: Subjects and Structures in 20th Century American Drama. Wayne State University. p. 181.
23. Aleksandr Mikhaĭlovich Prokhorov (1973). Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Macmillan. p. 327.
24. Harold Bloom (1995). Modern Mystery Writers. Chelsea House Publishers. p. 76. ISBN   978-0-7910-2375-4.
25. Meanjin Quarterly. University of Melbourne. 1970. p. 338.
26. Harold Oxbury (1985). Great Britons: Twentieth-century Lives. Oxford University Press. p. 48. ISBN   978-0-19-211599-7.
27. Pennsylvania Biographical Dictionary. Somerset Publishers. 1999. p. 234. ISBN   0403099501.
28. Keri Edwards (2001). "Jones, Jack (1884-1970), author and playwright". Dictionary of Welsh Biography . National Library of Wales . Retrieved 2 June 2022.
29. Leo Baeck Institute (1990). Catalog of the Archival Collections. Mohr Siebeck. p. 124. ISBN   978-3-16-145597-1.
30. Norman Page (22 January 1988). E-M-Forster. Macmillan International Higher Education. p. 16. ISBN   978-1-349-19008-9.
31. Gale Cengage (2002). Modern French Poets. Gale Group. p. 32. ISBN   978-0-7876-5252-4.
32. "About Penguin: Company history". Penguin Books. Archived from the original on 2011-11-01. Retrieved 2013-11-01.
33. Bernard A. Cook (2001). Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. p. 840. ISBN   978-0-8153-4058-4.
34. Konzett, Matthias (2000). Encyclopedia of German Literature. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. p. 814. ISBN   9781135941222.
35. Jay Parini (2004). The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. Oxford University Press. p. 397. ISBN   978-0-19-515653-9.
36. Igoe, Vivien (2001). Dublin burial grounds & graveyards. Dublin: Wolfhound Press. p. 179. ISBN   9780863278723.
37. Ove Røsbak. "Alf Prøysen, 1914–1970" (in Norwegian). Norsk Oversetterleksikon. Retrieved July 1, 2019.
38. Henry Scott Stokes (2000). The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 249. ISBN   978-0-8154-1074-4.
39. Elizabeth A. Brennan; Elizabeth C. Clarage (1999). Who's who of Pulitzer Prize Winners. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 120. ISBN   978-1-57356-111-2.
40. Contemporary Novelists. St. James Press. 1972. p. 1188.