This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1954.
Events
- January â Kingsley Amis's first novel, the comic campus novel Lucky Jim, is published by Victor Gollancz Ltd in London.
- January 7 â The GeorgetownâÂÂIBM experiment is the first public demonstration of a machine translation system, held in New York at the IBM head office.
- January 25 â Dylan Thomas's radio play Under Milk Wood is first broadcast in the U.K. on the BBC Third Programme, two months after its author's death, with Richard Burton as "First Voice".
- February â The London Magazine is revived as a literary magazine, with John Lehmann as editor.
- March 31 â 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.
- May 29 â 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.
- June 16 â 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 â In the ParkerâÂÂHulme 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 â The first volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's epic The Lord of the Rings â The Fellowship of the Ring â is published in London by George Allen & Unwin. The Two Towers follows on November 11 and publication will be completed in 1955. By 2007, 150 million copies will have been sold worldwide.
- September 1 â Lawrence Quincy Mumford becomes the U.S.Librarian of Congress.
- September 17 â William Golding's first novel, the allegorical dystopian Lord of the Flies, is published by Faber and Faber in London.
- September 22 â Terence Rattigan's two linked plays Separate Tables is first performed, at St James's Theatre, London.
- October 30 â John Updike's first story for The New Yorker, "Friends from Philadelphia", is published. He graduates from 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 â Brendan Behan's first play, The Quare Fellow is premièred at the Pike Theatre, Dublin.
- unknown date â Jack Kerouac reads Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible (1932, found in San Jose library), which will influence him greatly.
New books
Fiction
Children and young people
Drama
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Poetry
Non-fiction
Births
- January 5 â László Krasznahorkai, Hungarian novelist and screenwriter
- January 15 â Jose Dalisay, Jr., Filipino writer
- January 29 â Oprah Winfrey, American actress and talk show host
- January â Cao Wenxuan (æ¹æÂÂè»Â), Chinese children's book writer and academic
- February 2 â Moniza Alvi, Pakistani-British poet and writer
- March 4 â Irina Ratushinskaya, Russian writer
- May 6 â Nicholas Crane, English writer, geographer and broadcaster
- March 16 â S. A. Griffin, American actor and poet
- March 20
- Christoph Ransmayr, Austrian writer
- Louis Sachar, American children's author
- April 14 â Bruce Sterling, American science-fiction writer
- May 5 â Hamid Ismailov, Uzbek writer
- May 23 â Anja Snellman, Finnish writer
- June 6 â Cynthia Rylant, American children's author and poet
- June 28 â A. A. Gill, British journalist and critic (died 2016)
- July 17 â J. Michael Straczynski, American author
- July 26 - Michael Grant, American young-adult fiction writer
- August 1 â James Gleick, American non-fiction author
- August 15 â Mary Jo Salter, American poet and academic
- August 17 â Anatoly Kudryavitsky, Russian-Irish writer
- September 14 â Mikey Smith, Jamaican dub poet (killed 1983)
- November 8 â Kazuo Ishiguro, Japanese-born English novelist and Nobel laureate
- November 10 â Marlene van Niekerk, South African novelist
- November 11 â Mary Gaitskill, American novelist, essayist and short story writer
- November 12 â Christopher Pike (Kevin Christopher McFadden), American children's author
- December 2 â Ibrahim Nasrallah, Jordanian/Palestinian poet and novelist
- December 3 â Grace Andreacchi, American author
- December 7 â Mark Hofmann, American rare book dealer, forger and murderer
- December 20 â Sandra Cisneros, American writer
- unknown dates
- Esther Delisle, French Canadian author and historian
- Roma Tearne (Roma Chrysostom), Sri Lankan novelist and artist
Deaths
- January 1 â Duff Cooper (1st Viscount Norwich), English poet, biographer and politician (born 1890)
- January 21 â E. K. Chambers, English literary scholar (born 1866)
- January 25 â M. N. Roy, Indian philosopher and politician (born 1887)
- February 2 â Hella Wuolijoki, Estonian-born Finnish writer (born 1886)
- February 6 â Maxwell Bodenheim, American poet and novelist (born 1892; murdered)
- March 28 â Francis Brett Young, English novelist and poet (born 1884)
- April 8
- Juan ÃÂlvarez, Argentinian historian (born 1878)
- Winnifred Eaton, Canadian author (born 1875)
- Cicely Fox Smith, English poet and nautical writer (born 1882)
- April 19 â Russell Davenport, American journalist and publisher (born 1899)
- May 3 â Earnest Hooton, American writer on anthropology (born 1887)
- June 18 â Constantin Beldie, Romanian literary promoter and memoirist (born 1887)
- July 13 â Grantland Rice, American sportswriter (born 1880)
- July 14 â Jacinto Benavente, Spanish dramatist and Nobel laureate (born 1866)
- August 2 â Julián Padrón, Venezuelan novelist, journalist and lawyer (born 1910)
- August 3 â Colette, French novelist (born 1873)
- September 19 â Miles Franklin, Australian novelist (born 1879)
- September 29 â W. J. Gruffydd, Welsh-language journal editor (born 1881)
- October 22 â Oswald de Andrade, Brazilian poet and polemicist (born 1890)
- November 17 â Ludovic DauÃÂ, Romanian novelist and dramatist (born 1873)
- December 6 â Lucien Tesnière, French grammarian (born 1893)
- December 20 â James Hilton, English novelist (born 1900)
Awards
References