1953 in literature

Events

• January 5 – Waiting For Godot, a play by the Irish writer Samuel Beckett, has its first public stage performance, in French as En attendant Godot, at the in Paris. Beckett's novel The Unnamable is also published in French this year.
• January 22 – The Crucible, a historical drama by Arthur Miller written as an allegory of McCarthyism, opens on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre.
• February 19 – The State of Georgia approves the first literature censorship board in the United States.
• April 13 – The face of popular literature changes with the publication of Ian Fleming's novel Casino Royale, introducing the British spy character James Bond.
• May – The semi-autobiographical Go [Tell It on the Mountain (novel)|Go Tell It on the Mountain] by James Baldwin is published. In 2001, it will be named as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the editors of the American Modern Library.
• June 17 – Bertolt Brecht continues uninterrupted with rehearsals for the first production of Erwin Strittmatter's Katzgraben: Szenen aus dem Bauernleben, with the Berliner Ensemble during the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany. The incident inspires Günter Grass's Die Plebejer proben den Aufstand.
• July 13 – The first Stratford Shakespearean Festival of Canada opens in Stratford, Ontario.
• September – French journalist Jean Borel's article "Zola a-t-il été assassiné?" in the September–October edition of Libération suggests that Émile Zola's death in 1902 was not accidental.
• September 9 – The Supreme Court decision in Rumely v. United States affirms that indirect lobbying in the United States by distribution of books intended to influence opinion is a public good and not subject to regulation by Congress.
• October – The literary magazine Encounter begins publication in London under the editorship of the American political journalist Irving Kristol and the English poet Stephen Spender, with covert sponsorship by the Central Intelligence Agency.
• October 21 – Shortly after being knighted, the English actor Sir John Gielgud is convicted of "persistently importuning male persons for an immoral purpose" in Chelsea, London.
• November 5 – Dylan Thomas, on a poetry reading tour of the United States, is admitted to St. Vincent's Hospital, Manhattan in a coma, which continues until his death on November 9. Early versions of his play for voices Under Milk Wood have been given in the United States this year, but it is not broadcast in its final form until 1954.
• December – The American novelist Howard Fast is awarded the Stalin Peace Prize.
• unknown dates
• *Ronald Harwood joins Sir Donald Wolfit's theatre company, and becomes his dresser.
• *John Dickson Carr's final Sir Henry Merrivale mystery novel, writing as Carter Dickson, is published.
• *After five years as an English teacher, Frederick Buechner moves to New York City to become a full-time writer.
• *Federico García Lorca's Obras Completas are published in Spain as a prohibition on his work is lifted there.
• *Brian O'Nolan is obliged to retire from a senior post in the Civil Service of the Republic of Ireland on grounds of alcoholism and impoliteness to senior politicians.
• *City Lights Bookstore is established in San Francisco by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin.

New books

Fiction

• Ilse Aichinger – Der Gefesselte
• Sholom Aleichem – Adventures of Mottel the Cantor's Son
• Phyllis Shand Allfrey – The Orchid House
• Eric Ambler – The Schirmer Inheritance
• Mulk Raj Anand – The Private Life of an Indian Prince
• Isaac Asimov – Second Foundation
• Nigel Balchin
• * Private Interests
• * Sundry Creditors
• James Baldwin – Go Tell It on the Mountain
• Saul Bellow – The Adventures of Augie March
• Nicolas Bentley – Third Party Risk
• Alfred Bester – The Demolished Man
• John Bingham – Five Roundabouts to Heaven
• Zealia Bishop – The Curse of Yig
• Heinrich Böll – And Never Said a Word
• Ray Bradbury
• *Fahrenheit 451
• *The Golden Apples of the Sun
• Gwendolyn Brooks – Maud Martha
• John Bude – Twice Dead
• William S. Burroughs – Junkie
• John Dickson Carr – The Cavalier's Cup
• Max Catto – A [Prize of Gold (novel)|A Prize of Gold]
• Henry Cecil – Natural Causes
• Raymond Chandler – The Long Goodbye
• James Hadley Chase – I'll Bury My Dead
• Agatha Christie
• *After the Funeral
• *A Pocket Full of Rye
• Arthur C. Clarke
• *Against the Fall of Night
• *Childhood's End
• Beverly Cleary – Otis Spofford
• Ivy Compton-Burnett – The Present and the Past
• Edmund Crispin – Beware of the Trains
• A. J. Cronin – Beyond This Place
• Roald Dahl – Someone Like You
• Cecil Day-Lewis – The Dreadful Hollow
• L. Sprague de Camp
• *The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens
• *Sprague de Camp's New Anthology of Science Fiction
• *The Tritonian Ring and Other Pusadian Tales
• L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt – Tales from Gavagan's Bar
• Lloyd C. Douglas – The Robe
• Islwyn Ffowc Elis – Cysgod y Cryman
• Ian Fleming – Casino Royale
• C. S. Forester – Hornblower and the Atropos
• Ernest K. Gann – The High and the Mighty
• Anthony Gilbert – Footsteps Behind Me
• Rumer Godden – Kingfishers Catch Fire
• Richard Gordon – Doctor at Sea
• Davis Grubb – The [Night of the Hunter (novel)|The Night of the Hunter]
• Mark Harris – The Southpaw
• L. P. Hartley – The Go-Between
• James Hilton – Time and Time Again
• Shirley Jackson – Life Among the Savages
• David Karp – One
• Margaret Kennedy – Troy Chimneys
• Wolfgang Koeppen – Das Treibhaus
• Camara Laye – L'Enfant noir
• Rosamond Lehmann – The Echoing Grove
• Ira Levin – A Kiss Before Dying
• Audrey Erskine Lindop – The Singer Not the Song
• Eric Linklater – The House of Gair
• E. C. R. Lorac
• * Crook O'Lune
• * Murder as a Fine Art
• Virgilio Rodríguez Macal – Carazamba
• Angus MacVicar – The Lost Planet
• Wolf Mankowitz – A Kid for Two Farthings
• Ngaio Marsh – Spinsters in Jeopardy
• James A. Michener – The Bridges at Toko-ri
• Gladys Mitchell – Merlin's Furlong
• Roger Nimier – Nothing to Make a Fuss About
• Flannery O'Connor – "A Good Man Is [Hard to Find (short story)|A Good Man Is Hard to Find]"
• Zoe B. Oldenbourg – The Cornerstone
• Alan Paton – Too Late the Phalarope
• Mervyn Peake – Mr Pye
• Barbara Pym – Jane and Prudence
• Ellery Queen – The Scarlet Letters
• Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings – The Sojourner
• Mary Renault – The Charioteer
• Karl Ristikivi – Hingede öö
• Alain Robbe-Grillet – Les Gommes
• Juan Rulfo – El Llano en llamas
• J. D. Salinger – Nine Stories
• Samuel Shellabarger – Lord Vanity
• Wilmar H. Shiras – Children of the Atom
• Howard Spring – A Sunset Touch
• Rex Stout – The Golden Spiders
• Cecil Street – Death at the Inn
• Theodore Sturgeon – More Than Human
• Julian Symons – The Broken Penny
• Jim Thompson – Savage Night
• Leon Uris – Battle Cry
• Boris Vian – Heartsnatcher
• A. E. van Vogt – The Universe Maker
• Henry Wade – Too Soon to Die
• John Wain – Hurry on Down
• Evelyn Waugh – Love [Among the Ruins. A Romance of the Near Future|Love Among the Ruins]
• Dennis Wheatley – Curtain of Fear
• Dorothy Whipple – Someone at a Distance
• Ben Ames Williams – The Unconquered
• John Wyndham – The Kraken Wakes
• Frank Yerby – ''The Devil's Laughter''

Children and young people

• Rev. W. Awdry – Gordon the Big Engine
• Viola Bayley – White Holiday
• Bruce Carter – Speed Six!
• Roger Lancelyn Green – King Arthur and His [Knights of the Round Table]
• C. S. Lewis – The Silver Chair
• Elinor Lyon – Run Away Home
• Joan Phipson – Good Luck to the Rider
• Joan G. Robinson – Teddy Robinson
• Miriam Schlein – When Will the World Be Mine?
• Geoffrey Willans – ''Down with Skool! A Guide to School Life for Tiny Pupils and their Parents''

Drama