1950 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1950.

Events

January 19 – Isaac Asimov's first full-length novel, Pebble in the Sky, is published in the United States by Doubleday.
January 26 – For the film noir Gun Crazy, released on this day in the United States, co-writer Dalton Trumbo is billed as Millard Kaufman, due to the former's inclusion on the Hollywood blacklist. This year Trumbo serves 11 months in prison for Contempt of Congress, in the federal penitentiary in Ashland, Kentucky.
February – Jack Kerouac has his first novel, The Town and the City, published in the United States.
April 8 – J. D. Salinger's wartime short story "For Esmé — with Love and Squalor" is published in The New Yorker.
May 11 – Eugène Ionesco's first play, The Bald Soprano is first performed, in Paris.
September 10 – George Bernard Shaw is taken to hospital after fracturing a hip falling out of a tree he was pruning. He is released from hospital a few weeks later after a successful operation, but suffers kidney failure and dies at his home, Shaw's Corner, aged 94.
October – Galaxy Science Fiction magazine launches in the United States.
October 2 – The daily comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz, makes its debut in nine United States newspapers.
October 16 – C. S. Lewis's children's portal allegorical fantasy novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, illustrated by Pauline Baynes, is published by Geoffrey Bles in London, first of the seven-book The Chronicles of Narnia.
December 20 – Poet T. S. Eliot expresses concerns about "the television habit" in a letter to The Times.
unknown dates
*Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is sent to a "special camp" for political prisoners in Kazakhstan.
*The 13th–14th century Japanese epic poem The Tale of the Heike is retold in modern prose by the historical novelist Eiji Yoshikawa as Shin Heike monogatari and published in Asahi Weekly.
*Blackwell's opens the first specialist children's bookshop, in Broad Street, Oxford.
*Adrian Bell begins his Countryman's Notebook column in the Eastern Daily Press.

New books

Births

January 5 – Valentina Tăzlăuanu, Moldovan essayist, journalist and theatre critic
January 17 – Luis López Nieves, Puerto Rican writer
January 19 – Will Weaver, American author
January 20 – Edward Hirsch, American poet
January 22 – Paul Bew, Irish historian and academic
January 24 – Benjamin Urrutia, Ecuadorian author and scholar
January 25 – Gloria Naylor, African-American novelist and academic
February 11 – Mauri Kunnas, Finnish children's author
February 20 – Jean-Paul Dubois, French novelist and journalist
February 26:
*Irena Brežná, Slovak-Swiss writer, journalist and activist writing in German
*Adam Cornford, English poet and essayist
March 17 – Peter Robinson, British-born Canadian novelist
March 19 – Kirsten Boie, German children's writer
March 23 – Ahdaf Soueif, Egyptian novelist
April 20 – Steve Erickson, American novelist
May 1 – Aldino Muianga, Mozambican physician and writer
May 27 – Alex Gray, Scottish crime writer
June 21 – Anne Carson, Canadian poet and scholar
June 25 – Barbara Gowdy, Canadian novelist
July 3 – Zhang Kangkang, Chinese writer
July 22 – Susan Eloise Hinton, American novelist
August 9 – Nicole Tourneur, French novelist
August 26 – Carl Deuker, American author
September 7 – Peggy Noonan, American columnist, political writer
September 16 – Henry Louis Gates, American literary critic
September 20 – James Blaylock, American fantasy author
September 28 – Christina Hoff Sommers, American author and philosopher
October 10 – Nora Roberts, American novelist
October 12 – Edward Bloor, American novelist
October 15 – Teresa Amy, Uruguayan poet and translator
October 17 – David Adams Richards, Canadian author
October 18 – Wendy Wasserstein, American playwright
October 27 – Fran Lebowitz, American writer
November 3 – Massimo Mongai, Italian author
November 4 – Charles Frazier, American novelist
December 18 – Leonard Maltin, American film critic and historian
December 20 – Sheenagh Pugh, English-born poet and novelist
December 30 – Timothy Mo, Hong Kong British novelist
unknown dates
*Bandi, North Korean fiction writer
*Greg McGee, New Zealand playwright and crime fiction writer
*Candace Robb, American historical novelist

Deaths

January 5 – Basil Williams, English historian
January 8 – Joseph Schumpeter, Austrian/American political economist
January 21 – George Orwell, English novelist
February 7 – D. K. Broster, English historical novelist
February 13 – Rafael Sabatini, Italian-born English-language novelist
February 24 – Irving Bacheller, American journalist and novelist
March 5 – Edgar Lee Masters, American poet
March 11 – Heinrich Mann, German novelist
March 19 – Edgar Rice Burroughs, American author
March 22 – Emmanuel Mounier, French philosopher, journalist and theologian
circa March 30 – Henric Streitman, Romanian essayist and journalist
April 1 – F. O. Matthiessen, American historian and literary critic
April 4 – Cuthbert Whitaker, English yearbook editor
April 8 – Albert Ehrenstein, Austrian Expressionist poet
April 27 – H. Bonciu, Romanian novelist, poet and translator
May 6 – Agnes Smedley, American journalist and writer
May 8 – Cezaro Rossetti, Scottish-born Esperanto writer
May 10 – Belle da Costa Greene, American librarian
May 11 – Alfred O. Andersson, English-born American journalist and newspaper publisher
June 4 – George Cecil Ives, German-born English poet, writer and reformer
June 14 – Katharine Glasier, English writer and socialist
July 7 – Guy Gilpatric, American short story writer
August 27 – Cesare Pavese, Italian poet and novelist
September 6 – Olaf Stapledon, English philosopher and science fiction writer
September 18 – Henrik Rytter, Norwegian dramatist, lyricist and translator
October 9 – Nicolai Hartmann, German-Latvian philosopher
October 19 – Edna St. Vincent Millay, American poet
October 31 – Herbert Kelly, English religious writer and cleric
November 2 – George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist, critic and activist
November 25 – Johannes V. Jensen, Danish author
December 25 – Xavier Villaurrutia, Mexican poet and dramatist
December 28 – Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, Soviet short-story writer
unknown dates
*Edith Escombe, English fiction writer and essayist
*Helen Rowland, American journalist and humorist

Awards

Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Elfrida Vipont, The Lark on the Wing
Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Max Tau
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction: Robert Henriques, Through the Valley
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography: Cecil Woodham-Smith, Florence Nightingale
Mystery Writer Of Japan – Kazuo Shimada, Shakai-bu Kisha
Newbery Medal: Marguerite de Angeli, The Door in the Wall
Newdigate Prize: John Bayley
Nobel Prize in Literature: Bertrand Russell
Premio Nadal: Elena Quiroga, Viento del norte
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Joshua Logan, South Pacific
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: A. B. Guthrie Jr., The Way West
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Gwendolyn Brooks, ''Annie Allen''

1950 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards