1939 in literature
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
See also: 1938 in literature, other events of 1939, 1940 in literature, list of years in literature.
Contents |
[edit] Events
- December 25 - A Christmas Carol is read before a radio audience for the first time.
- Frank Herbert lies about his age to get his first job as a local newspaper reporter.
- Jean-Paul Sartre is drafted into the French Army.
- Robert A. Heinlein's first published short story appears in Astounding Magazine.
[edit] New books
- Eric Ambler - The Mask of Dimitrios
- Sholem Asch - The Nazarene
- William Attaway - Let Me Breathe Thunder
- Arna Wendell Bontemps - Drums at Dusk
- Pearl S. Buck - The Patriot
- Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan the Magnificent
- Aime Cesaire - Cahier d'un Retour au Pays Natal
- Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep
- Agatha Christie
- William Faulkner - If I Forget Thee Jerusalem (The Wild Palms/Old Man)
- Vardis Fisher - Children of God
- Zona Gale - Magna
- Ernest Hemingway - The Snows of Kilimanjaro
- Zora Neale Hurston - Moses, Man Of The Mountain
- Aldous Huxley - After Many a Summer
- James Joyce - Finnegans Wake
- Arthur Koestler - The Gladiators
- Richard Llewellyn - How Green Was My Valley
- H. P. Lovecraft - The Outsider and Others
- John O'Hara - Files on Parade
- George Orwell - Coming Up for Air
- Elliot Paul - The Mysterious Mickey Finn
- Katherine Anne Porter - Pale Horse, Pale Rider
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - Wind, Sand and Stars (Terre des hommes)
- John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
- Dalton Trumbo - Johnny Got His Gun
- Elio Vittorini - Conversazione in Sicilia (Conversations in Sicily)
- Ernest Vincent Wright - Gadsby
[edit] New drama
- Philip Barry - The Philadelphia Story
- Bertolt Brecht - Mother Courage and Her Children (Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder)
- T. S. Eliot - The Family Reunion
- Lillian Hellman - The Little Foxes
- George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart -The Man Who Came to Dinner
- Joseph Kesselring - Arsenic and Old Lace
- Clare Boothe Luce - Margin of Error
[edit] Poetry
[edit] Non-fiction
- Lord David Cecil - The Young Melbourne and the Story of his Marriage with Caroline Lamb
- Savitri Devi - A Warning to the Hindus
- Erwin Panofsky - Studies in Iconology
- Ronald Syme - The Roman Revolution
[edit] Births
- Michael Moorcock, British science fiction author
- January 29 - Germaine Greer, feminist author
- April 12 - Alan Ayckbourn, dramatist
- June 5 - Margaret Drabble, novelist
- August 1 - Robert James Waller, American novelist
- October 6 - Melvyn Bragg, novelist, critic and television presenter
- October 9 - John Pilger, journalist
- October 10 - Clive James, writer, humorist and television personality
- November 17 - Auberon Waugh, journalist and son of Evelyn Waugh
- November 18 - Margaret Atwood, novelist and poet
- date unknown - Ferdinand Mount, journalist and novelist
- date unknown - Iris Gower, romantic novelist
- date unknown - Alan Coren, satirist
[edit] Deaths
- Solomon Cleaver, storyteller and novelist
- January 28 - William Butler Yeats, poet
- February 18 - Okamoto Kanoko, tanka poet
- February 22 - Antonio Machado, poet
- March 7 - Ludwig Fulda
- March 23 - Richard Halliburton, travel writer
- April 11 - S. S. Van Dine, crime fiction writer
- May 27 - Joseph Roth, novelist
- June 26 - Ford Madox Ford, novelist
- July 8 - Havelock Ellis, sexual psychologist and controversial writer
- September - Ethel M. Dell, romantic novelist
- September 6 - Arthur Rackham, book illustrator
- October 23 - Zane Grey, popular author of westerns
- December 2 - Llewelyn Powys, biographer and autobiographer
[edit] Awards
- Newbery Medal for children's literature: Elizabeth Enright, Thimble Summer
- Nobel Prize for literature: Frans Eemil Sillanpää
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Robert E. Sherwood, Abe Lincoln in Illinois
- Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: John Gould Fletcher: Selected Poems
- Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - The Yearling
