1952 In Literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1952.

Events

*February – The historical periodical '' Past & Present'' is launched in Oxford, U.K.
*February 29 – Derek J. de Solla Price reveals his discovery of a lost medieval scientific work entitled ''Equatorie of the Planetis'', initially attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer, in the Times Literary Supplement.
*March 3 – J. L. Carr takes over as Headmaster of Highfields Primary School, Kettering, which will later feature in his novel '' The Harpole Report''.
*May – The works of André Gide are placed on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books by Pope Pius XII.
*July 10 – The first issue appears of '' Mad'', edited by Harvey Kurtzman and published by William M. Gaines' EC Comics.
*August 12 – The Night of the Murdered Poets brings the execution of 13 Soviet Jews in Lubyanka Prison, Moscow, including several writers.
*September 6 – The Universal Copyright Convention is adopted at Geneva.
*October 17 – Samuel Beckett's play '' Waiting For Godot'' is published in Paris as ''En attendant Godot'' by Les Éditions de Minuit.
*October 28 – E. E. Cummings delivers the first of his Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard University.
*November 25 – Agatha Christie's play ''The Mousetrap'' opens at the New Ambassadors Theatre, London. It will still be running as of 2021, next door at St Martin's Theatre from 1974.
*''unknown dates''
**The publisher Diogenes Verlag is founded in Zurich, Switzerland, by Daniel Keel.
**The National Library of Burma is established in Rangoon.

New books

Fiction

* Thomas Armstrong – '' Adam Brunskill''
*Isaac Asimov
**''The Currents of Space''
**''Foundation and Empire''
*H. E. Bates – ''Love for Lydia''
* Margot Bennett – ''The Widow of Bath''
*John Bingham – '' My Name Is Michael Sibley''
*Pearl S. Buck – ''The Hidden Flower''
* John Bude – ''Death on the Riviera''
*Ivan Bunin – ''The Life of Arseniev''
*Italo Calvino
**''The Argentine Ant'' (''La Formica Argentina'')
**''The Cloven Viscount'' (''l visconte dimezzato'', first of the ''Our Ancestors'' trilogy)
*Victor Canning – '' The House of the Seven Flies''
*John Dickson Carr
**'' The Nine Wrong Answers''
**'' Behind the Crimson Blind'' (as Carter Dickson)
* Henry Cecil – '' No Bail for the Judge''
*Louis-Ferdinand Céline – ''Fable for Another Time''
*Agatha Christie
**''Mrs McGinty's Dead''
**'' They Do It with Mirrors''
**'' A Daughter's a Daughter'' (as Mary Westmacott)
*Brian Cleeve – '' The Far Hills''
*Branko Ćopić – ''Prolom'' (The Break-out)
* Thomas B. Costain – ''The Silver Chalice''
*A. J. Cronin – '' Adventures in Two Worlds''
*August Derleth
**''Three Problems for Solar Pons''
**'' Night's Yawning Peal: A Ghostly Company'' (as editor)
* David F. Dodge – ''To Catch a Thief''
*Jean Dutourd – '' The Best Butter''
*Ralph Ellison – ''Invisible Man''
*Edna Ferber – ''Giant''
* C. S. Forester – ''Lieutenant Hornblower''
*Paul Gallico – '' The Small Miracle''
* Anthony Gilbert – '' Miss Pinnegar Disappears''
*Jean Giono – '' The Malediction''
* Richard Gordon – ''Doctor in the House''
*Winston Graham – ''Fortune Is a Woman''
* Walter Greenwood – '' So Brief the Spring''
* Edward Grierson – ''Reputation for a Song''
*Vasily Grossman – ''Stalingrad'' («Сталингра́д»)
*Han Suyin – ''A Many-Splendoured Thing''
*Robert A. Heinlein – ''The Rolling Stones''
*Ernest Hemingway – ''The Old Man and the Sea''
*Willem Frederik Hermans – ' (The House of Refuge or An Untouched House, novella)
*Patricia Highsmith – ''The Price of Salt'' (as Claire Morgan)
*Hammond Innes – ''Campbell's Kingdom''
*Michael Innes – ''A Private View''
*Ernst Jünger – '' Visit to Godenholm''
*Frances Parkinson Keyes – ''Steamboat Gothic''
*David H. Keller – '' Tales from Underwood''
*Arthur Koestler – '' Arrow in the Blue''
* Halldór Laxness – Gerpla
*Doris Lessing – ''Martha Quest''
* E.C.R. Lorac
** ''Crossed Skis''
** '' The Dog It Was That Died''
** ''Murder in the Mill-Race''
*Compton Mackenzie – '' The Rival Monster''
*Bernard Malamud – ''The Natural''
*Wolf Mankowitz – ''Make Me an Offer''
* Ana Maria Matute – ''Fiesta al noroeste''
* Gladys Mitchell – '' The Echoing Strangers''
*Harry Mulisch – ''Archibald Strohalm''
*C. L. Moore – '' Judgment Night'' (science fiction short stories)
*R. K. Narayan – ''The Financial Expert''
*Flannery O'Connor – ''Wise Blood''
*Vin Packer – ''Spring Fire''
*Anthony Powell – ''A Buyer's Market''
* Maurice Procter – '' Rich Is the Treasure''
*John Pudney – '' The Net''
*Barbara Pym – ''Excellent Women''
*Ellery Queen – '' The King is Dead''
*Lucien Rebatet – '' Les Deux étendards''
* Charles Shaw – '' Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison''
*John Steinbeck – '' East of Eden''
*Rex Stout
**'' Triple Jeopardy''
**''Prisoner's Base''
* Noel Streatfeild – '' Aunt Clara''
* A. C. Swinburne (died 1909) – ''Lesbia Brandon'' (completed c.1868)
* Edith Templeton – ''The Island of Desire''
* Jim Thompson – ''The Killer Inside Me''
*Agnes Sligh Turnbull – ''The Gown of Glory''
*Amos Tutuola – ''The Palm-Wine Drunkard''
*Sachchidananda Vatsyayan (Agyeya) – ''Nadi ke dweep'' (Islands in the stream)
* Vercors – '' Les Animaux dénaturés''
* Arved Viirlaid – (Graves Without Crosses)
*Kurt Vonnegut – ''Player Piano''
*Henry Wade – '' Be Kind to the Killer''
*Evelyn Waugh – ''Men at Arms''
*Hillary Waugh – '' Last Seen Wearing...''
* Vaughan Wilkins – '' A King Reluctant''
*Angus Wilson – '' Hemlock and After''
*Frank Yerby – ''The Saracen Blade''

Children and young people

* Rev. W. Awdry – ''Toby the Tram Engine'' (seventh in ''The Railway Series'' of 42 books by him and his son Christopher Awdry)
*Enid Blyton – ''Noddy and Big Ears''
* Bruce Carter – '' The Perilous Descent (Into a Strange Lost World)''
*Alice Dalgliesh – '' The Bears on Hemlock Mountain''
* Dorothy Edwards – ''My Naughty Little Sister. Stories from "Listen With Mother"''
*Rumer Godden – ''Mouse House''
*C. S. Lewis – ''The Voyage of the Dawn Treader''
*Eloise Jarvis McGraw – '' Moccasin Trail''
*Farley Mowat – ''People of the Deer''
* Mary Norton – ''The Borrowers'' (first in the eponymous series of 6 books)
*Rhoda Power – ''Redcap Runs Away''
*William Matthew Scott – ''The Cherrys of River House'' (first in The Cherrys series of 14 books)
*Louis Slobodkin – '' The Space Ship Under the Apple Tree''
*Geoffrey Trease – ''The Crown of Violet'' (also ''Web of Traitors'')
*E. B. White – '' Charlotte's Web''

Drama

*Rodney Ackland – ''The Pink Room''
*Jean Anouilh
**'' The Lark'' (''L'Alouette'')
**''The Waltz of the Toreadors'' (''La Valse des toréadors'')
*Jacinto Benavente – '
*Alice Childress – ''Gold Through the Trees''
*Noël Coward – ''Quadrille''
*Constance Cox – '' Lord Arthur Savile's Crime''
*Robertson Davies – ''A Masque of Aesop''
*Henry de Montherlant – '' La Ville dont le prince est un enfant'' (The City Whose Prince is a Child; first performance in first published version)
*Friedrich Dürrenmatt – ''The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi'' (''Die Ehe des Herrn Mississippi'', first performance)
* Joseph Kramm – '' The Shrike''
*Charles Langbridge Morgan – ''The River Line''
*Eric Linklater – '' The Mortimer Touch''
* Roger MacDougall – '' Escapade''
*J.B. Priestley and Jacquetta Hawkes – '' Dragon's Mouth''
*Terence Rattigan – '' The Deep Blue Sea''
*Dodie Smith – ''Letter from Paris''
*Ben Travers – '' Wild Horses''
*John Van Druten – '' I've Got Sixpence''
*Arthur Watkyn – ''The Moonraker''

Poetry

*Paul Celan – ''Poppy and Memory'' (german: Mohn und Gedächtnis)
* David Jones – '' The Anathemata: fragments of an attempted writing''
*Gabriela Mistral – ''Los sonetos de la muerte y otros poemas elegíacos''
*Sean O Riordain – ''Eireaball Spideoige''

Non-fiction

*Roland Bainton – ''The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century''
*L. Sprague de Camp and Willy Ley – ''Lands Beyond''
*Dorothy Day – '' The Long Loneliness''
*Lawrence Gowing – ''Vermeer''
*Heinrich Harrer – ''Sieben Jahre in Tibet. Mein Leben am Hofe des Dalai Lama'' (''Seven Years in Tibet'', 1954)
*Aldous Huxley
**''The Devils of Loudun''
**''Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow''
*Maurice Nicoll – ''Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky''
*Norman Vincent Peale – ''The Power of Positive Thinking''
*Gwen Raverat – ''Period Piece''
* P. R. Reid – ''The Colditz Story''
*Jean-Paul Sartre – ''Saint Genet, comédien et martyr''
*Pierre Schaeffer – '' In Search of a Concrete Music (À la Recherche d'une Musique Concrète)''
*F. Sherwood Taylor – ''The Alchemists''
*Paul Tillich – ''Courage To Be''
*Immanuel Velikovsky – '' Ages in Chaos''
*J. M. Wallace-Hadrill – ''The Barbarian West, 400–1000''
*Raymond Williams – ''Drama from Ibsen to Eliot''

Births

*January 4 – Michele Wallace, American feminist author
*January 12 – Walter Mosley, American novelist
*January 21 – Louis Menand, American author and academic
*February 10 – Gail Rebuck, English publisher
*February 19
**Ryū Murakami (村上 龍), Japanese novelist, essayist and filmmaker
**Amy Tan, American novelist
*February 29 – Tim Powers, American fantasy author
*March 5 – Robin Hobb (Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden, Megan Lindholm), American fantasy author
*March 7 – William Boyd, Gold Coast-born Scottish novelist and screenwriter
*March 11 – Douglas Adams, English science fiction author (died 2001)
*March 13 – Ágnes Rapai, Hungarian poet, writer and translator
*March 23 – Kim Stanley Robinson, American science fiction author
*March 26 – T. A. Barron, American novelist
*May 5 – Hafsat Abdulwaheed, Nigerian author and poet
*June 4 – Dambudzo Marechera, Zimbabwean writer (died 1987)
*June 7 – Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist and Nobel laureate
* June 20
** Vince Gotera, American poet and critic
**Vikram Seth, Indian novelist
*June 29 – Breece D'J Pancake (Breece Dexter Pancake), American short story writer (suicide 1979)
*July 3 – Rohinton Mistry, Indian-born Canadian novelist
*July 6 – Hilary Mantel, English novelist (died 2022)
*July 10 – Candice F. Ransom, American children's and young-adult author
*July 18 – Per Petterson, Norwegian novelist
*August 28 – Rita Dove, American poet
*September 29 - Pete Hautman, American young-adult novelist
*October 18 – Bảo Ninh, Vietnamese author
*November 15 – Rick Atkinson, American journalist, historian and author
*November 21 – Pedro Lemebel, Chilean novelist
*December 19 – Sean O'Brien, English poet
*December 22 – Mick Inkpen, English children's writer and illustrator
*December 28 – Hemant Shesh, Indian Hindi writer

Deaths

*January 22 – Roger Vitrac, French poet and dramatist (born 1899)
*January 26 – Lodewijk van Deyssel, Dutch novelist (born 1864)
*February 7 – Norman Douglas, Austrian-born Scottish novelist (born 1868)
*February 13 – Josephine Tey (Elizabeth MacKintosh), Scottish crime novelist (born 1896)
*February 19 – Knut Hamsun, Norwegian novelist and Nobel laureate (born 1859)
*March 1
**Mariano Azuela, Mexican novelist, dramatist and critic (born 1873)
** Masao Kume (久米 正雄), Japanese playwright, novelist and haiku poet (born 1891)
*March 27 – Ioan A. Bassarabescu, Romanian short story writer and politician (born 1870)
*April 1 – Ferenc Molnár (Ferenc Neumann), Hungarian dramatist and novelist (born 1878)
*May 17 – Paul Bujor, Romanian politician, zoologist and short story writer (born 1862)
*May 26 – Eugene Jolas, American/French writer, literary translator and critic (born 1894)
*June 1 – John Dewey, American philosopher and psychologist (born 1859)
*July 1 – A. S. W. Rosenbach, American book collector (born 1876)
* July 8 – August Alle, Estonian writer (born 1890)
*August 9 – Jeffery Farnol, English historical novelist (born 1878)
*August 22 – H. J. Massingham, English countryside writer (born 1888)
*September 26 – George Santayana, Spanish philosopher, poet and novelist writing in English (born 1863)
*October 4 – Keith Murdoch, Australian journalist (born 1885)
*October 6 – Teffi (Nadezhda Alexandrovna Buchinskaya), Russian humorist (born 1872)
*November 3 – Louis Verneuil, French playwright (suicide, born 1893)
*November 4 – Gilbert Frankau, English novelist (born 1884)
*November 13 – Margaret Wise Brown, American children's author (embolism, born 1910)
*November 16 – Charles Maurras, French poet and critic (born 1868)
*November 18 – Paul Éluard, French surrealist poet (heart attack, born 1895)
*November 23 – Aaro Hellaakoski, Finnish poet (born 1893)
*December 6 – Cicely Hamilton, English dramatist and suffragist (born 1872)

Awards

* Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Mary Norton, ''The Borrowers''
*Frost Medal: Carl Sandburg
*James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Evelyn Waugh, ''Men at Arms''
*James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: G. M. Young, ''Stanley Baldwin''
*National Book Award: James Jones, ''From Here to Eternity''.
*Newbery Medal for children's literature: Eleanor Estes, ''Ginger Pye''
* Newdigate prize: Donald Hall
*Nobel Prize for Literature: François Mauriac
*Premio Nadal: María Medio Estrada, ''Nosotros, los Rivero''
*Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Joseph Kramm, '' The Shrike''
* Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Herman Wouk – ''The Caine Mutiny''
*Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Marianne Moore, ''Collected Poems''
* King's Gold Medal for Poetry: Andrew Young
*National Book Award for Fiction: James Jones – ''From Here to Eternity''

References

Years of the 20th century in literature

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