1930 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1930.

Events

January 6 – An early literary character-licensing agreement is signed by A. A. Milne, giving Stephen Slesinger U.S. and Canadian merchandising rights to the Winnie-the-Pooh works.
February – The Censorship of Publications Board begins to function in the Irish Free State. Among the first 13 books banned are Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley, The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall and several on sex and marriage by Margaret Sanger and Marie Stopes.
February 23 – Erich Maria Remarque's anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front is banned in Thuringian schools by Education Minister Wilhelm Frick.
March 19 – Paul Robeson plays the title role of Othello at the Savoy Theatre, London, with Peggy Ashcroft as Desdemona.
May 6 – The Collins Crime Club is launched as a crime fiction imprint by the U.K. firm William Collins.
May 10 – John Masefield becomes Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom.
July 14 – Luigi Pirandello's The Man with the Flower in His Mouth becomes the first broadcast television drama, by the BBC in England, directed by Val Gielgud.
July 19 – Georges Simenon's Detective Inspector Jules Maigret makes a first appearance in print, under Simenon's own name after he abandons pseudonyms, in the novel Pietr-le-Letton , which begins serialization in the French weekly magazine Ric et Rac published by Fayard. It will appear in book form in 1931 as the fifth of 75 novels in which Simenon features the pipe-smoking Paris detective.
September 11 – Agatha Christie marries archaeologist Max Mallowan in Edinburgh.
September 24 – The first production of Noël Coward's comedy Private Lives opens at the Phoenix Theatre (London), featuring Coward, Gertrude Lawrence and Laurence Olivier in the cast.
September 29 – The English satirical novelist Evelyn Waugh joins the Catholic Church.
October 13 – Agatha Christie's The Murder at the Vicarage, the first full-length novel to feature her amateur detective Miss Marple, appears in the U.K. in the Collins Crime Club series, after serialization in the United States.
November 5 – American novelist Sinclair Lewis is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
December 10 – The first performance of Bertolt Brecht's Lehrstück ''The Decision, written in collaboration with Slatan Dudow and the composer Hanns Eisler, occurs at the Großes Schauspielhaus in Berlin, with Ernst Busch as lead.
unknown dates
*John Langalibalele Dube publishes the historical novella Insila kaShaka, the first work of fiction in the Zulu language.
*Franz Kafka's novel The Castle'' is translated into English for the first time, by Willa and Edwin Muir.

New books

Births

January 1 – Adunis, Syrian-born poet
January 20 – Blair Lent, American children's author and illustrator
January 23 – Derek Walcott, Saint Lucian poet and playwright
February 15 – Bruce Dawe, Australian poet
February 17 – Ruth Rendell, English detective and mystery novel writer
February 18 – Gahan Wilson, American author and illustrator
February 22 – Edward D. Hoch, American detective fiction writer
February 23 – Paul West, English-born American novelist, poet and essayist
March 2 – Tom Wolfe, American author, journalist
March 8 – Douglas Hurd, English politician and novelist
March 26 – Gregory Corso, American poet
April 16 – Carol Bly, American teacher, author of short stories, essays and nonfiction
May 3 – Juan Gelman, Argentine poet
May 13 – José Jiménez Lozano, Spanish novelist
May 14 - María Irene Fornés, Cuban-American playwright
May 15 – Grace Ogot, Kenyan author
May 19 – Lorraine Hansberry, African-American playwright
May 21 – Stanley Wells, English Shakespearean scholar
May 25 – Jón frá Pálmholti, Icelandic writer and journalist
May 27 – John Barth, American fiction writer
June 3 – Marion Zimmer Bradley, American writer
June 10 – Grace Mirabella, American journalist, editor of Vogue 1971-88
June 14 – Charles McCarry, American spy and novelist
June 23 – Anthony Thwaite, English poet
June 28 – Maureen Howard, American writer, editor and lecturer
July 6 – Gloria Skurzynski, American author
July 11 – Harold Bloom, American literary critic
July 13 – Sam Greenlee, African American author
July 15 – Jacques Derrida, French Algerian literary critic
July 17 – Ray Galton, English scriptwriter
August 8 – Barry Unsworth, English novelist
August 9 – Carmen Balcells, Spanish literary agent
August 17 – Ted Hughes, English poet laureate
August 19 - Frank McCourt, Irish-American writer
August 25 – Peter Trower, Canadian poet and novelist
August 27 – Erzsébet Galgóczi, Hungarian novelist, playwright and screenwriter
September 3 – Cherry Wilder, New Zealand novelist
September 25 – Shel Silverstein, American poet
September 29 – Colin Dexter, English detective fiction writer
October 2 – Antonio Gala, Spanish poet, playwright and novelist
October 10 – Harold Pinter, English dramatist
October 18 – Esther Hautzig, Polish-born American autobiographer
October 24 – Elaine Feinstein, English poet, novelist and literary biographer
October 26 – Catherine Obianuju Acholonu, Nigerian researcher and poet
October 27 – Francisca Aguirre, Spanish poet
October 30 – Timothy Findley, Canadian author
November 1 – A. R. Gurney, American dramatist
November 5
* Clifford Irving, American literary forger
* Hans Mommsen, German historian
November 12 – Irma Chilton, Welsh children's writer in Welsh and English
November 15 – J. G. Ballard, English novelist and essayist
November 16 – Chinua Achebe, Nigerian writer, academic and literary critic
November 20 – Bai Hua, Chinese poet, dramatist and novelist
November 27 – Rex Shelley, Singaporean author
December 2 – Jon Silkin, English poet
December 9 – Edoardo Sanguineti, Italian writer
December 15 – Edna O'Brien, Irish fiction writer
December 25 – Salah Jahin, Egyptian poet, lyricist, playwright and cartoonist

Deaths

January 9 – Edward Bok, American author
January 16 – Johannes Gilhoff, German writer
January 24 – Rebecca Latimer Felton, American writer, lecturer, reformer and politician
February 9 – Alice Williams Brotherton, American author
February 27
*George Haven Putnam, American author and publisher
*Joseph Wright, English philologist and lexicographer
February 28 – Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff, Scottish writer and translator
March 2 – D. H. Lawrence, English novelist and poet
March 12 – Alois Jirásek, Czech novelist and dramatist
March 13 – Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, American author
April 10 – Alfred Williams, English poet and steam-hammer operator
April 14
*Sigurd Ibsen, Norwegian politician and writer
*Vladimir Mayakovsky, Russian poet, suicide
*John B. Sheridan, Irish-American sports journalist
April 21 – Robert Bridges, English poet and Poet Laureate
April 22 – Jeppe Aakjær, Danish poet and novelist
April 29 – Maria Polydouri, Greek poet
May 12 – Iso Mutsu, English-born Japanese travel writer
May 15 – William John Locke, British Guiana-born English novelist and playwright
May 16 – Florence Bell, English writer and playwright
May 17 – Herbert Croly, American political writer
June 9
*Arthur St. John Adcock, English novelist and poet
*Thomas Herbert Warren, English scholar and poet
June 23 – Israel Gollancz, English Shakespeare scholar
July 7 – Arthur Conan Doyle, Scottish writer of crime fiction
July 26 – Pavlos Karolidis, Greek historian
August 23 – Lucien Wolf, English journalist and historian
August 29 – William Archibald Spooner, English academic and instigator of spoonerisms
September 1 –Thomas Nicoll Hepburn, Scottish writer and poet
September 4 – Vladimir Arsenyev, Russian travel writer and explorer
September 5 – Georges de Porto-Riche, French novelist and dramatist
September 18 –Karam Singh, Sikh historian
September 25 – Arthur Way, English-born Australian classicist and translator
October 4 – Olena Pchilka, Ukrainian writer, translator and publisher
October 11 – Roy Horniman, English novelist and playwright
October 16 – James Surtees Phillpotts, English writer and educator
November 20 – William B. Hanna, American sportswriter
November 21 – Jean-Marie-Raphaël Le Jeune, Canadian writer, linguist and Catholic priest
December 8 – Florbela Espanca, Portuguese poet
December 22
*Neil Munro, Scottish humorist, novelist and critic
*Marion Manville Pope, American poet and author of juvenile literature

Awards

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: E. H. Young, Miss Mole
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Francis Yeats-Brown, Lives of a Bengal Lancer
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Rachel Field, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years
Nobel Prize in Literature: Sinclair Lewis
Prix Goncourt: Henri Fauconnier, Malaisie
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Marc Connelly, The Green Pastures
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Conrad Aiken, Selected Poems
Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Oliver La Farge, ''Laughing Boy''

1930 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards