1955 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1955.

Events

February 8 – Jin Yong's first wuxia novel, The Book and the Sword, begins publication in the New Evening Post, where he is an editor.
March 3 – Jean Cocteau is elected to the Académie française ; on January 8 he has been elected to the Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique.
April 16 – Sir Laurence Olivier's film version of Shakespeare's Richard III is released in U.K. cinemas.
June – J. P. Donleavy's novel The Ginger Man is published in Paris by Olympia Press, but he is angered when he finds they have produced it under their imprint for pornography, 'The Traveller's Companion Series'. It is prohibited in both the author's adoptive and native countries, the Republic of Ireland and the United States, for obscenity. Set in postwar Dublin it features the character Sebastian Dangerfield.
July 10 – Jorge Luis Borges is appointed Director of the National Library of the Argentine Republic.
July 14 – Director Stephen Joseph sets up Britain's first theatre in the round at Scarborough, North Yorkshire, predecessor of the Stephen Joseph Theatre.
July 30 – The English poet Philip Larkin, having become University Librarian at the University of Hull on March 21, is inspired on a train from Hull to Grantham to write a poem, "The Whitsun Weddings". His collection The Less Deceived is published in November.
August
*The American speculative fiction author Charles Beaumont's short story "The Crooked Man", depicting a homosexual society where heterosexuality is persecuted, is published in Playboy magazine after being rejected by Esquire.
*An article in the British Journal of Education criticises Enid Blyton's novels as formulaic.
August 3 – The English-language première of Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot, directed by Peter Hall, opens at the Arts Theatre, London. The initial reaction is hostile, but "verything changed on Sunday 7 August 1955 with Kenneth Tynan's and Harold Hobson's reviews in The Observer and The Sunday Times. Beckett was always grateful to the two reviewers for their support... which more or less transformed the play overnight into the rage of London."
August 27 – The first hardback edition of The Guinness Book of Records appears in London.
September – Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita appears in Paris three years before its US publication.
September 26 – The Madan Puraskar is established as an annual award for outstanding books in the Nepali language, endowed by Rani Jagadamba Kumari Devi.
November – Frank Herbert's first novel The Dragon in the Sea begins as a three-part serial, Under Pressure, in the monthly Astounding Science-Fiction.
November 28 – Ray Lawler's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is first staged by the Union Theatre Repertory Company in Melbourne with the playwright in a lead. It is the first authentically naturalistic drama in the theatre of Australia.
unknown date
*Violette Leduc's novel Ravages is issued in France but the publisher, Éditions Gallimard, suppresses the opening section depicting a semi-autobiographical lesbian awakening, which will be published as a novella, Thérèse et Isabelle, in 1966.
*The Indian guru Mani Madhava Chakyar performs Koodiyattam outside a temple for the first time.

New books

Poetry

Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson – The Poems of Emily Dickinson
Philip Larkin – The Less Deceived
R.S. Thomas – ''Song at the Year's Turning''

Non-fiction

Richard Aldington – Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Inquiry
James Baldwin – Notes of a Native Son
Frank Barlow – The Feudal Kingdom of England
Ivan Bunin – About Chekhov
G. D. H. Cole – Studies in Class Structure
Thomas E. Gaddis – Birdman of Alcatraz
Antonio Gramsci – Gli intellettuali e l'organizzazione della cultura
Robert Graves – The Greek Myths
The Guinness Book of Records, 1st edition
Langston Hughes – The Sweet Flypaper of Life
Morris K. Jessup – The Case for the UFO
R. K. Kelsall – Higher Civil Servants in Britain
T. E. Lawrence – The Mint: A day-book of the R.A.F. Depot between August and December 1922, with later notes
C. S. Lewis – Surprised by Joy
Walter Lippmann – Essays in the Public Philosophy
Walter Lord – A Night to Remember
Herbert Marcuse – Eros and Civilization
Alan Marshall – I Can Jump Puddles
Garrett Mattingly – Renaissance Diplomacy
Meher Baba – God Speaks
J. H. Plumb – Studies in Social History
RAND – A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates
Donald J. West – ''Homosexuality''

Births

January 11 – Max Lucado, American religious writer
January 12 – Rockne S. O'Bannon, American writer and producer
January 13 – Jay McInerney, American novelist
January 27 – Alexander Stuart, English-born American novelist and screenwriter
February 2 – Leszek Engelking, Polish poet, fiction writer and translator
February 8 – John Grisham, American novelist
February 17 – Mo Yan, Chinese fiction writer
February 23 – Francesca Simon, American-born children's fiction writer
March 11 – D. J. MacHale, American writer
March 19 – John Burnside, Scottish poet and fiction writer
March 23 – Lloyd Jones, New Zealand novelist
March 27 – Patrick McCabe, Irish novelist
April 8 – Barbara Kingsolver, American novelist, essayist and poet
April 30 – Zlatko Topčić, Bosnian author and screenwriter
May 13 – Mark Abley, Canadian poet and non-fiction writer
May 30 – Colm Tóibín, Irish novelist, playwright and poet
June 4 – Val McDermid, Scottish crime novelist
June 16 – J. Jill Robinson, Canadian fiction writer
June 20 – Tor Nørretranders, Danish science author
July 1
*Candia McWilliam, Scottish fiction writer
*Lisa Scottoline, American writer of legal thrillers
July 5
*Sebastian Barry, Irish novelist, playwright and poet
*Mia Couto, Mozambican fiction writer and poet
July 6
*Michael Boyd, British theatre director
*William Wall, Irish author and poet
July 7 – Suzanne Weyn, American children's and young-adult writer
July 10 – Regina Yaou, Ivory Coast novelist
July 12 – Robin Robertson, Scottish-born poet, novelist and editor
July 24 – Brad Watson, American author and academic
August 2 – Caleb Carr, American writer
August 7 – Vladimir Sorokin, Russian writer
August 8 – Iain Pears, English writer
August 14 - Mary E. Pearson, American young-adult fiction writer
September 6 – Raymond Benson, American novelist
September 13 – Hiromi Itō, Japanese poet, essayist and translator
October 19 – Jason Shinder, American poet and editor
November 6 – Catherine Asaro, American science fiction and fantasy author
November 12 – Katharine Weber, American author and academic
November 23 – Steven Brust, American fantasy author
December 28 – Liu Xiaobo, Chinese critic, writer and activist
unknown date – Wang Xiaoni, Chinese poet

Deaths

January 18 – Saadat Hasan Manto, Pakistani fiction writer
January 20 – Robert P. Tristram Coffin, American poet, essayist and novelist
February 23 – Paul Claudel, French poet, dramatist and diplomat
April 10 – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French philosopher and essayist
May 16 – James Agee, American writer
June 6 – Joseph Jefferson Farjeon, English crime writer
June 17 – Constance Holme, English novelist and dramatist
June 19 – Adrienne Monnier, French poet and publisher
June 21 – Roger Mais, Jamaican novelist
June 30 – Gilbert Cannan, British writer
July 3 – Beatrice Chase, English writer
August 1 – Charles Shaw, Australian writer
August 2 – Wallace Stevens, American poet
August 12 – Thomas Mann, German novelist
August 14 – Herbert Putnam, American Librarian of Congress
August 29 – Hong Shen, Chinese dramatist
September 7 – Mary Tracy Earle, American author and essayist
September 20 – Robert Riskin, American dramatist and screenwriter
October 18 – José Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher
November 1 – Dale Carnegie, American writer
November 12 – Tin Ujević, Croatian poet
November 14
*Ruby M. Ayres, English romance novelist
*Robert E. Sherwood, American playwright
December – Al. T. Stamatiad, Romanian poet

Awards

Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Eleanor Farjeon, The Little Bookroom
Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Hermann Hesse
Frost Medal: Leona Speyer
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Ivy Compton-Burnett, Mother and Son
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: R. W. Ketton-Cremer, Thomas Gray
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Meindert DeJong, The Wheel on the School
Nobel Prize for Literature: Halldór Laxness
Premio Nadal: Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, El Jarama
Prix Goncourt: Roger Ikor, Les eaux mêlées
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: William Faulkner, A Fable
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Wallace Stevens, Collected Poems
Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Ruth Pitter

1955 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Musical theater

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards