1959 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1959.

Events

• January 31 – At Jilava prison, Sandu Tudor begins serving a 40-year sentence for "conspiracy against the social order" and "intense activity against the working class", as meted out by a Romanian communist tribunal; he would die in 1962, at Aiud prison, possibly from torture.
• April 30 – Theatrical première of Bertolt Brecht's Saint Joan of the Stockyards, originally performed on radio in 1932.
• May 7 – Scientist and novelist C. P. Snow delivers an influential Rede Lecture on The Two Cultures, concerning a perceived breakdown of communication between the sciences and humanities, in the Senate House, University of Cambridge. It is subsequently published as The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.
• May 28 – The Mermaid Theatre opens in the City of London.
• July 21 – D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover is one of a trio of books (the others being Tropic of Cancer and Fanny Hill), the ban on which is fought and overturned in court with assistance by lawyer Charles Rembar in the United States; the book, published in 1928, legally circulates in the U.S. after a 31-year obscenity ban.
• July 29 – Obscene Publications Act in the United Kingdom becomes law (coming into force on August 29), requiring a work to be considered as a whole, permitting a "public good" defence against a prosecution for obscenity, and making prosecutions for obscene libel difficult.
• October 29 – First appearance of Astérix the Gaul, in the first regular issue of the comic magazine Pilote.
• November 11 – Release in the United States of the short film Pull My Daisy, adapted from his unperformed play Beat Generation and narrated by Jack Kerouac and starring poets Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and Gregory Corso.
• Anthony Burgess is invalided home to England from a teaching post in Brunei and becomes a full-time novelist.
• Aldous Huxley turns down the offer of a knighthood.
• Colin Dexter begins teaching at Corby Grammar School.
• Frank Herbert begins researching Dune.
• Frederik Pohl becomes an editor of the American science fiction magazine Galaxy.
• Marcel Achard is elected to the Académie française.
• Literature Wales is established as The Academi.
• The first butoh performance piece, Kinjiki by Tatsumi Hijikata, premieres at a dance festival in Japan. It is based on the novel of the same name (Forbidden Colors) by Yukio Mishima and explores the taboos of male homosexuality and paedophilia.

New books

Fiction

• Isaac Asimov – Nine Tomorrows
• Saul Bellow – Henderson the Rain King
• Robert Bloch – Psycho
• Antoine Blondin – A Monkey in Winter (Un Singe en hiver)
• Ray Bradbury – A Medicine for Melancholy
• John Brunner
  • Echo in the Skull
  • The World Swappers
• Algis Budrys – The Falling Torch
• William S. Burroughs – Naked Lunch
• Taylor Caldwell – Dear and Glorious Physician
• John Dickson Carr – Scandal at High Chimneys: A Victorian Melodrama
• Agatha Christie – Cat Among the Pigeons
• Ivy Compton-Burnett – A Heritage and Its History
• Richard Condon – The Manchurian Candidate
• Alexander Cordell – Rape of the Fair Country
• Julio Cortázar – Las armas secretas (short stories)
• Richard Crichton – The Great Impostor
• Allen Drury – Advise and Consent
• Alfred Duggan – Children of the Wolf
• Shusaku Endo (遠藤 周作) – Wonderful Fool (おバカさん)
• William Faulkner – The Mansion
• Ian Fleming – Goldfinger
• Paul Gallico – Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris
• William Golding – Free Fall
• Günter Grass – The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel)
• Vasily Grossman – Life and Fate (Жизнь и судьба; completed but unpublished until the 1980s)
• Robert A. Heinlein
  • The Menace From Earth
  • Starship Troopers
  • The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag
• Dorothy Hewett – Bobbin Up
• Jabra Ibrahim Jabra – Tammūz fī al-Madīnah (Tammuz in the City)
• Shirley Jackson – The Haunting of Hill House
• Uwe Johnson – Mutmassungen über Jakob (Speculations about Jakob)
• John Knowles – A Separate Peace
• H. P. Lovecraft etc. – The Shuttered Room and Other Pieces
• John Lymington – Night of the Big Heat
• John D. MacDonald
  • Deadly Welcome
  • The Beach Girls
  • The Crossroads
• Ross Macdonald – The Galton Case
• Colin MacInnes – Absolute Beginners
• Alistair MacLean
  • The Last Frontier
  • Night Without End
• Naguib Mahfouz – Children of Gebelaawi (أولاد حارتنا)
• Norman Mailer – Advertisements for Myself
• James A. Michener – Hawaii
• V.S. Naipaul – Miguel Street
• Mervyn Peake – Titus Alone
• Raymond Queneau – Zazie in the Metro
• Robert Randall (writing as Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett) – The Dawning Light
• Mordecai Richler – The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
• Kate Roberts – Te yn y grug (short stories)
• Philip Roth – Goodbye, Columbus
• Robert Ruark – Poor No More
• Nathalie Sarraute – Le Planétarium
• Alan Sillitoe – The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
• Aimée Sommerfelt – The Road to Agra (Veien til Agra)
• Terry Southern – The Magic Christian
• Rex Stout – Plot It Yourself
• John Updike – The Same Door
• Kurt Vonnegut – The Sirens of Titan
• Keith Waterhouse – Billy Liar
• Sheila Watson – The Double Hook

Children and young people

• Jane Duncan – My Friends the Miss Boyds (first in the My Friends series of 19 books)
• Joseph Krumgold – Onion John
• Dr. Seuss – Happy Birthday to You!
• Bill Peet
  • Hubert's Hair-Raising Adventure
  • Goliath II
• Margery Sharp – The Rescuers (first in the eponymous series of nine novels)

Drama

• Edward Albee
  • The Death of Bessie Smith (written)
  • The Zoo Story (premiered in German)
• Jean Anouilh – Becket
• John Arden – Serjeant Musgrave's Dance
• Alan Ayckbourn (as Roland Allen) – The Square Cat
• Samuel Beckett – Embers (first broadcast)
• Bertolt Brecht (posthumously) – Saint Joan of the Stockyards (Die Heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe, first stage performance)
• Albert Camus – The Possessed (Les Possédés)
• Beverley Cross – One More River
• Refik Erduran – Cengiz Han’ın Bisikleti ("The Bicycle of Genghis Khan")
• Jack Gelber – The Connection
• Jean Genet – The Blacks: A Clown Show (Les Nègres, clownerie, first performed)
• Lorraine Hansberry – A Raisin in the Sun
• Eugène Ionesco – The Killer (Tueur sans gages)
• Harold Pinter – The Caretaker (first published)
• Jean-Paul Sartre – The Condemned of Altona (Les Séquestrés d'Altona, translated as Loser Wins)
• N. F. Simpson – One Way Pendulum
• Wole Soyinka – The Lion and the Jewel
• Arnold Wesker
  • Roots
  • The Kitchen
• Tennessee Williams – Sweet Bird of Youth
• Egon Wolff – Parejas de trapo

Non-fiction

• Kenneth Anger – Hollywood Babylon
• L. Sprague de Camp – Engines
• August Derleth
  • Arkham House: The First 20 Years
  • Some Notes on H. P. Lovecraft
• Savitri Devi – Impeachment of Man
• G. H. Dury – The Face of the Earth
• C. S. Forester – Sink the Bismarck! (also as The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck)
• Erving Goffman – The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
• Laurie Lee – Cider With Rosie
• Miguel León-Portilla – Visión de los vencidos: Relaciones indígenas de la conquista
• Garrett Mattingly – The Defeat of the Spanish Armada
• Czesław Miłosz – Rodzinna Europa (Native Realm)
• Iona and Peter Opie – The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren
• James Pope-Hennessey – Queen Mary 1867–1953
• Karl Popper – The Logic of Scientific Discovery
• Cornelius Ryan – The Longest Day
• William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White – The Elements of Style
• Wilfred Thesiger – Arabian Sands

Births

• January 8 – Ovidiu Pecican, Romanian writer and poet
• January 9 – Rigoberta Menchú, Guatemalan writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner
• January 20 – R. A. Salvatore, American science fiction and fantasy author
• January 28 – Megan McDonald, American children's author
• February 2 – Jari Tervo, Finnish author
• March 11 – Dejan Stojanović, Serbian-American poet and essayist
• March 15 – Ben Okri, Nigerian poet and novelist
• March 18 – Frédéric-Yves Jeannet, French-born writer in French and Spanish
• April 15 – Emma Thompson, English actress and screenwriter
• April 30 – Alessandro Barbero, Italian historian, novelist and essayist
• c. May 1 – Yasmina Reza, French novelist and dramatist
• May 3 – Ben Elton, English comedian, novelist and screenwriter
• June 12 – Hilary McKay, English children's writer
• June 13 – Maurice G. Dantec, French science fiction author
• August 27 – Jeanette Winterson, English novelist
• September 9 – Matti Rönkä, Finnish TV journalist and novelist
• September 29 – Benjamin Sehene, Rwandan writer
• October 1 – Brian P. Cleary, American humorist, author and poet
• October 31 – Neal Stephenson, American science fiction writer
• November 1 – Susanna Clarke, English novelist
• December 20 – Sandra Cisneros, Mexican-born American author

Deaths

• January 3 – Edwin Muir, Scottish poet, novelist and translator (born 1887)
• January 29 – Pauline Smith, South African novelist (born 1882)
• February 20 – Laurence Housman, English playwright and writer (born 1865)
• February 22 – Percy F. Westerman, English children's author (born 1876)
• February 23 – Luis Palés Matos, Puerto Rican poet (heart failure (born 1898)
• February 28 – Maxwell Anderson, American playwright and film writer (born 1888)
• March 4 – W. W. Greg, English literary scholar (born 1875)
• March 17 – Galaktion Tabidze (Galaktioni), Georgian poet (suicide, born 1892)
• March 26 – Raymond Chandler, American crime writer (born 1888)
• April 14 – Julien Josephson, American screenwriter (born 1881)
• May 18 – Apsley Cherry-Garrard, English memoirist and explorer (born 1886)
• May 20 – Alfred Schütz, Austrian philosopher and sociologist (born 1899)
• June 1 – Sax Rohmer (Arthur Henry Ward), English novelist (born 1883)
• June 23 – Boris Vian, French novelist (heart attack, born 1920)
• June 30 – José Vasconcelos, Mexican poet and political writer (born 1882)
• July 3 – Johan Bojer, Norwegian novelist (born 1872)
• July 26 – Manuel Altolaguirre, Spanish poet, editor and publisher (car accident, born 1905)
• August 8 – Emil František Burian, Czech poet, journalist and playwright (born 1904)
• September 18 – Benjamin Péret, French poet and Surrealist (born 1899)

Awards

• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Rosemary Sutcliff, The Lantern Bearers
• Hugo Award for Best Novel: James Blish, A Case of Conscience
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Morris West, The Devil's Advocate
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Christopher Hassall, Edward Marsh
• Miles Franklin Award: Vance Palmer, The Big Fellow
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Elizabeth George Speare, The Witch of Blackbird Pond
• Nobel Prize for literature: Salvatore Quasimodo
• Premio Nadal: Ana María Matute, Primera memoria
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Archibald MacLeish, J. B.
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Robert Lewis Taylor, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Stanley Kunitz, Selected Poems 1928-1958
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Francis Cornford