1957 in literature

The year 1957 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

* Lawrence Durrell publishes the first volume of "The Alexandria Quartet". The final of the four volumes will be published in 1960.
*Dorothy Parker begins writing book reviews for "Esquire".
*E. E. Cummings receives a special citation from the National Book Award Committee for his "Poems, 1923-1954".
*Italo Calvino resigns from the Communist Party. His famous letter of resignation is published in "L'Unità".
*John Updike moves to Ipswich, Massachusetts, the model for the fictional New England town of Tarbox in his novel, "Couples".
*"The Last Days of Sodom", a novel jointly written by Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, is rejected. As a result they give up working in partnership.
*Malcolm Muggeridge is replaced by Bernard Hollowood as editor of "Punch" magazine.
*Copies of Howl are seized by customs officials. Later in the year, the publishers are acquitted of obscenity charges stemming from the incident.

New books

*Caridad Bravo Adams - "Corazón salvaje"
*Isaac Asimov
**"Earth is Room Enough"
**"The Naked Sun"
*John Braine - "Room at the Top"
*Fredric Brown - "Rogue in Space"
*Pearl S. Buck - "Letter from Peking"
*Michel Butor - "La Modification"
*John Cheever - "The Wapshot Chronicle"
*Mark Clifton & Frank Riley - "They'd Rather Be Right"
*Thomas B. Costain - "Below the Salt"
*James Gould Cozzens - "By Love Possessed"
*L. Sprague de Camp - "Solomon's Stone"
*Daphne du Maurier - "The Scapegoat"
*Lawrence Durrell - "Justine"
*Ian Fleming
**"The Diamond Smugglers"
**"From Russia with Love"
*Aldous Huxley - "Collected Short Stories"
*James Jones - "Some Came Running"
*Anna Kavan - "Eagle's Nest"
*Jack Kerouac - "On the Road"
*Frances Parkinson Keyes - "Blue Camellia"
*Christopher Landon - "Ice Cold in Alex"
*Primo Levi - "If This Is a Man"
*Meyer Levin - "Compulsion"
*H. P. Lovecraft & August Derleth - "The Survivor and Others"
*Alistair MacLean - "The Guns of Navarone"
*Naguib Mahfouz - "Sugar Street"
*Bernard Malamud - "The Assistant"
*Richard Mason - "The World of Suzie Wong"
*James A. Michener - "Rascals in Paradise"
*Nancy Mitford - "Voltaire in Love"
*C. L. Moore - "Doomsday Morning"
*Elsa Morante - "L'isola di Arturo"
*Iris Murdoch - "The Sandcastle"
*Vladimir Nabokov - "Pnin"
*Björn Nyberg and L. Sprague de Camp - "The Return of Conan"
*Marcel Pagnol - "Le Château de ma mère"
*Boris Pasternak - "Doctor Zhivago"
*Anthony Powell - "At Lady Molly's"
*Ayn Rand - "Atlas Shrugged"
*Robert Randall (pseudonym of Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett) - "The Shrouded Planet"
*Dr. Seuss - "The Cat in the Hat", "How the Grinch Stole Christmas
*Nevil Shute - "On the Beach"
*Robert Paul Smith - "Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing"
*Muriel Spark - "The Comforters"
*John Steinbeck - "The Short Reign of Pippin IV"
*Rex Stout
**"Three for the Chair"
**"If Death Ever Slept"
*Kay Thompson - "Eloise in Paris"
*Roger Vailland - "La Loi"
*Jack Vance - "Big Planet"
*Evelyn Waugh - "The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold"
*Patrick White - "Voss"
*Ivan Yefremov - "Andromeda Nebula"

New drama

*Samuel Beckett - "Endgame"
*Eugene O'Neill - "Long Day's Journey Into Night"
*John Osborne
**"The Entertainer"
**"Epitaph for George Dillon" (with Anthony Creighton)
*Mervyn Peake - "The Wit to Woo"

Poetry

*Robert E. Howard - "Always Comes Evening"

Non-fiction

*Elisabeth Elliot — "Through Gates of Splendor"
*Northrop Frye — "Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays"
*Richard Hoggart — "The Uses of Literacy"
*Primo Levi — "If This Is a Man (Se Questo è un Uomo)"
*Art Linkletter — "Kids Say the Darndest Things"
*Mary McCarthy — "Memories of a Catholic Girlhood"
*Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley — "The Untouchables"
*Jean-Paul Sartre — "Existentialism and Human Emotions"
*Rodolfo Walsh — "Operación Masacre"

Births

*March 26 - Paul Morley, music journalist
*May 17 - Peter Høeg, novelist
*May 23 - Craig Brown, satirist
*June 8 - Scott Adams, satirist
*August 24 - Stephen Fry, actor, comedian, television presenter and novelist
*September 22 - Nick Cave, musician and author
*December 11 - William Joyce, children's author
*"date unknown"
**John Doyle, critic
**Rainer Karlsch, historian
**Mitchell Symons, journalist

Deaths

*February 10 - Laura Ingalls Wilder, author
*March 12 - John Middleton Murry, critic
*March 28 - Christopher Morley, journalist, novelist and poet
*March 29 - Joyce Cary, author
*April 22 - Roy Campbell, poet
*June 17 - Dorothy Richardson, novelist
*June 27 - Malcolm Lowry, author
*September 2 - William Craigie, lexicographer
*December 17 - Dorothy L. Sayers, crime novelist

Awards

* 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"
* 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

ee also

1956 in literature, other events of 1957, 1958 in literature, list of years in literature.