Overview of the events of 1954 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1954 .
January – Kingsley Amis 's first novel, the comic campus novel Lucky Jim Victor Gollancz Ltd in London.[ 1]
January 7 – The Georgetown–IBM experiment is the first public demonstration of a machine translation system, held in New York at the IBM head office.January 25 – Dylan Thomas 's radio play Under Milk Wood BBC Third Programme , two months after its author's death, with Richard Burton as "First Voice".February – The London Magazine literary magazine , with John Lehmann as editor.
March 31 – A. L. Zissu is sentenced in Bucharest to life imprisonment for "conspiring against the social order". This has been a focal point in the anti-Zionist clampdown in Communist Romania .[ 2] May 29 – The rediscovered and restored early 17th-century Corral de comedias de Almagro in Spain is re-inaugurated with a play by Calderon de la Barca .[ 3] June 16 – The first public celebration of "Bloomsday " takes place in Dublin : writers Flann O'Brien , Patrick Kavanagh and Anthony Cronin travel in a horse-drawn coach, stopping at numerous bars to retrace the steps of the characters from James Joyce 's novel Ulysses June 22 – In the Parker–Hulme murder case , the 15-year-old Julia Hulme, a future writer of English historical detective fiction as Anne Perry , takes part in the murder of her best friend's mother in Christchurch , New Zealand.July 29 – The first volume of J. R. R. Tolkien 's epic The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring The Two Towers 1955 . By 2007, 150 million copies will have been sold worldwide.[ 4] September 1 – Lawrence Quincy Mumford becomes the U.S.Librarian of Congress .September 17 – William Golding 's first novel, the allegorical dystopian Lord of the Flies Faber and Faber in London.September 22 – Terence Rattigan 's two linked plays Separate Tables St James's Theatre , London.October 30 – John Updike 's first story for The New Yorker Harvard with a thesis on George Herbert , and begins a year's Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship to the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at England's University of Oxford .November 19 – Brendan Behan 's first play, The Quare Fellow Pike Theatre , Dublin.unknown date – Jack Kerouac reads Dwight Goddard 's A Buddhist Bible (1932, found in San Jose library), which will influence him greatly.Children and young people [ edit ] January 5 – László Krasznahorkai , Hungarian novelist and screenwriterJanuary 15 – Jose Dalisay, Jr. , Filipino writerJanuary 29 – Oprah Winfrey , American actress and talk show hostJanuary – Cao Wenxuan (曹文軒), Chinese children's book writer and academic
February 2 – Moniza Alvi , Pakistani-British poet and writerMarch 4 – Irina Ratushinskaya , Russian writerMay 6 – Nicholas Crane , English writer, geographer and broadcasterMarch 16 – S. A. Griffin , American actor and poetMarch 20
April 14 – Bruce Sterling , American science-fiction writerMay 5 – Hamid Ismailov , Uzbek writerMay 23 – Anja Snellman , Finnish writerJune 6 – Cynthia Rylant , American children's author and poetJune 28 – A. A. Gill , British journalist and critic (died 2016 )July 17 – J. Michael Straczynski , American authorJuly 26 - Michael Grant , American young-adult fiction writerAugust 1 – James Gleick , American non-fiction authorAugust 15 – Mary Jo Salter , American poet and academicAugust 17 – Anatoly Kudryavitsky , Russian-Irish writerSeptember 14 – Mikey Smith , Jamaican dub poet (killed 1983 )November 8 – Kazuo Ishiguro , Japanese-born English novelist and Nobel laureateNovember 10 – Marlene van Niekerk , South African novelistNovember 11 – Mary Gaitskill , American novelist, essayist and short story writerNovember 12 – Christopher Pike (Kevin Christopher McFadden), American children's authorDecember 3 – Grace Andreacchi , American authorDecember 7 – Mark Hofmann , American rare book dealer, forger and murdererDecember 20 – Sandra Cisneros , American writerunknown dates
January 1 – Duff Cooper (1st Viscount Norwich), English poet, biographer and politician (born 1890 )January 21 – E. K. Chambers , English literary scholar (born 1866 )January 25 – M. N. Roy , Indian philosopher and politician (born 1887 )February 2 – Hella Wuolijoki , Estonian-born Finnish writer (born 1886 )February 6 – Maxwell Bodenheim , American poet and novelist (born 1892 ; murdered)March 28 – Francis Brett Young , English novelist and poet (born 1884 )April 8
April 19 – Russell Davenport , American journalist and publisher (born 1899 )May 3 – Earnest Hooton , American writer on anthropology (born 1887 )June 18 – Constantin Beldie , Romanian literary promoter and memoirist (born 1887 )July 13 – Grantland Rice , American sportswriter (born 1880 )July 14 – Jacinto Benavente , Spanish dramatist and Nobel laureate (born 1866 )August 2 – Julián Padrón , Venezuelan novelist, journalist and lawyer (born 1910 )August 3 – Colette , French novelist (born 1873 )September 19 – Miles Franklin , Australian novelist (born 1879 )September 29 – W. J. Gruffydd , Welsh-language journal editor (born 1881 )October 22 – Oswald de Andrade , Brazilian poet and polemicist (born 1890 )November 17 – Ludovic Dauș , Romanian novelist and dramatist (born 1873 )December 6 – Lucien Tesnière , French grammarian (born 1893 )December 20 – James Hilton , English novelist (born 1900 )[ 7]
^ a b Zachary Leader (2002). On Modern British Fiction ISBN 978-0-19-924933-6 ^ Glass, Hildrun (2010). "Câteva note despre activitatea lui Avram L. Zissu". In Rotman, Liviu; Crăciun, Camelia; Vasiliu, Ana-Gabriela (eds.). Noi perspective în istoriografia evreilor din România . Bucharest: Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania & Editura Hasefer. p. 166. ^ Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia 352– 546, OCLC 1460620 {{citation }}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link )^ Wagner, Vit (2007-04-16). "Tolkien proves he's still the king" . Toronto Star the original on 2011-03-09. Retrieved 2014-06-04 . ^ No. 41 in Le Monde' s 100 Books of the CenturySavigneau, Josyane (1999-10-15). "Écrivains et choix sentimentaux" . Le Monde
^ Leitch, Vincent B.; Cain, William E.; Finke, Laurie A.; Johnson, Barbara E.; McGowan, John; Williams, Jeffrey J. (2001). "William K. Wimsatt Jr. and Monroe C. Beardsley". In Leitch, Vincent B. (ed.). The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism . New York: W. W. Norton & Co. pp. 1371– 1374. ^ Stanley Kunitz (1955). Twentieth Century Authors: A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature. Supplement ^ Peter Hunt (2 September 2003). International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature ISBN 978-1-134-87993-9 ^ Susan Weiner; Professor Susan Weiner, MS Rdn Cde Cdn (9 May 2001). Enfants Terribles: Youth and Femininity in the Mass Media in France, 1945-1968 ISBN 978-0-8018-6539-8