This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1957.
Events
- January 10 â T. S. Eliot marries his secretary Valerie Fletcher, 30 years his junior, in a private church ceremony in London. His first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood, died in 1947.
- January 15 â The film Throne of Blood, a reworking of Macbeth by Akira Kurosawa (é»Â澤æÂÂ), is released in Japan.
- March â The Cat in the Hat, written and illustrated by Theodor Geisel as 'Dr. Seuss' as a more entertaining alternative to traditional literacy primers for children, is first published in a trade edition in the United States, initially selling an average of 12,000 copies a month, a figure which rises rapidly.
- March 13 â A 1950 Japanese translation of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover by Sei ItÃ
 (ä¼Âè¤æ´) is found on appeal to be obscene.
- March 15 â ÃÂlet és Irodalom (Life and Literature) is first published in Hungary as a literary magazine.
- March 21 â C. S. Lewis marries Joy Gresham in a Christian ceremony at her bedside in the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, England.
- March 25 â Copies of Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems (first published 1 November 1956) printed in England are seized by United States Customs Service officials in San Francisco on grounds of obscenity. On October 3, in People v. Ferlinghetti, a subsequent prosecution of publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti in the city, the work is ruled not to be obscene.
- April â John Updike moves to Ipswich, Massachusetts, the model for the fictional New England town of Tarbox in his 1968 novel Couples.
- June 2 â Joe Orton submits The Last Days of Sodom, a novel jointly written with Kenneth Halliwell, to a publisher; it is rejected within three days and they give up working in partnership.
- July 1 â The opening performance is held at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival's Festival Theatre in Stratford, Ontario, with its thrust stage designed by Tanya Moiseiwitsch.
- July 19 â The largely autobiographical novel The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold by Evelyn Waugh is published.
- August 7 â Italo Calvino's letter of resignation from the Italian Communist Party appears in l'UnitÃÂ.
- October â The first American Beat Generation (poets Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky) stay at the "Beat Hotel" (Hotel Rachou) in Paris.
- November 22 â Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago is first published, in Italian translation, by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli in Milan, having been rejected for publication in the Soviet Union.
- unknown dates
- Justine, the first novel in Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet, is published. The last will be published in 1960.
- Dorothy Parker begins writing book reviews for Esquire.
- E. E. Cummings gains a special citation from the National Book Award Committee in the United States for his Poems, 1923âÂÂ1954.
- Malcolm Muggeridge is replaced by Bernard Hollowood as editor of the British Punch magazine.
- The Harry Ransom Center for research in the humanities is founded in the University of Texas at Austin by Harry Ransom.
- John Sandoe opens a bookshop in Chelsea, London.
- Noh is inscribed as an Intangible Cultural Property (Japan).
- Three neo-Grotesque sans-serif typefaces are released: Folio (designed by Konrad Bauer and Walter Baum), Neue Haas Grotesk (Max Miedinger) and Univers (Adrian Frutiger), will influence the International Typographic Style of graphic design.
New books
Fiction
Children and young people
Drama
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Poetry
Non-fiction
Births
- January 7 â Nicholson Baker, American novelist
- January 16 â Stella Tillyard, English writer and historian
- January 22 â Francis Wheen, English journalist and author
- January 27 â Frank Miller, American comic-book cartoonist and scriptwriter
- February 11 â Mitchell Symons, English writer and journalist
- February 15 â Shahriar Mandanipour, Iranian writer
- March 3 â Nicholas Shakespeare, English novelist and biographer
- March 7 â Robert Harris, English novelist and current-affairs writer
- March 20 â John Grogan, American journalist and non-fiction writer
- March 23 â Ananda Devi, Mauritian francophone fiction writer and poet
- March 26 â Paul Morley, English music journalist
- March 29 â Elizabeth Hand, American science fiction and fantasy writer
- April 3
- Rainer Karlsch, German historian
- Unni Lindell, Norwegian novelist
- May 13 â Koji Suzuki, Japanese author and screenwriter
- May 17 â Peter Høeg, Danish novelist
- May 23 â Craig Brown, English satirist
- June 8 â Scott Adams, American satirist (died 2026)
- July 12 â Pino Quartullo, Italian actor, director, screenwriter and playwright
- July 14 â Andrew Nicholls, English-born Canadian screenwriter
- July 29 â Liam Davison, Australian novelist (died 2014 in air crash)
- August 24 â Stephen Fry, English comedy performer, broadcast presenter and writer
- August 25 â Simon McBurney, British actor, writer and theatre director
- September 11 - James McBride, American writer and musician
- September 22 â Nick Cave, Australian author and musician
- October 9 â Herman Brusselmans, Belgian novelist, poet, playwright and columnist
- October 28 - Catherine Fisher, British poet and children's writer
- December 3 â Anne B. Ragde, Norwegian novelist
- December 11 â William Joyce, American children's author
- December 12 â Robert Lepage, Canadian playwright
- unknown dates
- Peter Armstrong, English poet and psychotherapist
- John Doyle, Irish-born Canadian critic
- Ana Santos Aramburo, Spanish national librarian
- Melanie Rae Thon, American author
Deaths
- January 10 â Gabriela Mistral, Chilean poet (born 1889)
- January 13 â A. E. Coppard, English short story writer and poet (born 1878)
- January 19 â Barbu LÃÂzÃÂreanu, Romanian literary historian, poet, and communist journalist (heart attack, born 1881)
- February 10 â Laura Ingalls Wilder, American author (born 1867)
- March 7 â Wyndham Lewis, British novelist (born 1882)
- March 9 â Rhoda Power, English children's writer and broadcaster (born 1890)
- March 12 â John Middleton Murry, English critic (born 1889)
- March 28 â Christopher Morley, American journalist, novelist and poet (born 1890)
- March 29 â Joyce Cary, Irish novelist (born 1888)
- April 22 â Roy Campbell, South African poet and satirist (born 1901)
- June 17
- May Edginton, English popular novelist (born 1883)
- Dorothy Richardson, English novelist and journalist (born 1873)
- June 26
- Alfred Döblin, German novelist (born 1878)
- Malcolm Lowry, English novelist and poet (born 1909)
- July 10
- Sholem Asch, Polish-Jewish novelist, dramatist and essayist (born 1880)
- Julia Boynton Green, American author and poet (born 1861)
- July 19 â Curzio Malaparte, Italian novelist, playwright, and journalist (cancer, born 1898)
- July 21 â Kenneth Roberts, American historical novelist (born 1885)
- July 23 â Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Italian novelist (born 1896)
- July 24 â Sacha Guitry, Russian-born French playwright, actor and director (b. 1885)
- August 1 â Rose Fyleman, English writer and poet (born 1877)
- August 21 â Mait Metsanurk, Estonian writer (born 1879)
- August 25 â Leo Perutz, Austrian-born novelist and mathematician (born 1882)
- September 2 â William Craigie, Scottish lexicographer (born 1867)
- September 12 â José Lins do Rego, Brazilian novelist (born 1901)
- September 22 â Oliver St. John Gogarty, Irish poet and memoirist (born 1878)
- October 25 â Edward Plunkett, Baron Dunsany, Irish author (born 1878)
- October 26 â Nikos Kazantzakis, Greek novelist (born 1883)
- November 8 â Ernest Elmore (John Bude), English crime writer and theatre director (born 1901)
- November 24 â Alfred Eckhard Zimmern, English historian and political scientist (born 1879)
- December 15 â Mulshankar Mulani, Gujarati playwright (born 1867)
- December 17 â Dorothy L. Sayers, English crime novelist (born 1893)
- December 24 â Arturo Barea, Spanish journalist, broadcaster and writer (born 1897)
- December 25 â Stanley Vestal, American writer, poet and historian (born 1877)
Awards
Notes
References