1966 in literature explained
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1966.
Events
- February
- February 10 – Author Jacqueline Susann has her first novel, Valley of the Dolls, published. From a friend she obtains a list of the bookstores on whose sales figures The New York Times relies for its bestseller list. She then uses her own money to buy large quantities of her book at these stores, causing it to head the list. Valley of the Dolls incidentally comes to rank among the best-selling novels of all time.
- February 13 – Following the Sinyavsky–Daniel trial, dissident writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky are sentenced to hard labour for "anti-Soviet activity".[3]
- March 9 – J. R. R. Tolkien writes to Roger Verhulst expressing concerns about a proposed book about him by W. H. Auden, saying, "I regard such things as premature impertinences.... I cannot believe that they have a usefulness to justify the distaste and irritation given to the victim," but adding: "I owe Mr. Auden a debt of gratitude for the generosity with which he has supported and encouraged me since the first appearance of The Lord of the Rings."[4]
- March 21 – In a landmark obscenity case, Memoirs v. Massachusetts, the Supreme Court of the United States rules that the hitherto banned novel Fanny Hill (John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 1749) does not meet the Roth Standard for obscenity.
- April 14 – Noël Coward's A Song at Twilight, his only play to deal openly with homosexuality, premieres in London.[5]
- By June – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn completes his semi-autobiographical novel Cancer Ward («Раковый Корпус», Rakovy Korpus) and sends the manuscript to the Russian literary magazine Novy Mir. The editor, Tvardosky, equivocates and requests cuts, so Solzhenitsyn arranges for it be distributed as samizdat, then to be discussed at a meeting in Moscow of the Central Writers' Club on November 17.[6]
- June 14 – The Roman Curia abolishes the Index Librorum Prohibitorum of books banned by the Catholic Church, after 427 years.
- June 16 – Blackwell's opens the 930 m2 Norrington Room in their main bookshop in Broad Street, Oxford.[7]
- June 23 – Octopussy and The Living Daylights appears as the final collection of James Bond short stories by the character's creator, Ian Fleming, who died in 1964.
- July 24 – American poet and critic Frank O'Hara is hit by a dune buggy on Fire Island beach.[8] He dies of his injuries the following day.
- August 24 – Tom Stoppard's tragicomedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is first played, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Despite small audiences, Stoppard's reputation is made by a review by Ronald Bryden in The Observer.[9]
- September 8 – The first UNESCO International Literacy Day is celebrated.
- September 9 – New Beacon Books, the first Caribbean publishing house in England, releases its first title, Foundations by John La Rose.[10]
- October 21 – Jacques Derrida delivers a lecture, La Structure, le signe et le jeu dans le discours des sciences humaines,[11] to a structuralism colloquium at Johns Hopkins University, giving international prominence to his work on literary theory.
- November 3–4 – The 1966 flood of the Arno in Florence causes severe damage to libraries, including the National Central Library and Gabinetto Vieusseux.
- November 28 – Truman Capote's Black and White Ball ("The Party of the Century") is held in New York City. The guest of honor, The Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, later says: "Truman called me up that summer and said, 'I think you need cheering up. And I'm going to give you a ball.'...I was...sort of baffled....I felt a little bit like Truman was going to give the ball anyway and that I was part of the props."[12]
- December – Moskva magazine begins the first publication of Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita (Ма́стер и Маргари́та), begun in 1928 but left incomplete on the author's death in 1940. It appears in two parts with portions omitted or altered.
- unknown date – The first modern revival of a play by Bhāsa, Madhyamavyayoga, directed by Shanta Gandhi, is performed in a Hindi translation.[13]
New books
Fiction
Children and young people
Drama
Poetry
See main article: 1966 in poetry.
Non-fiction
Births
- February 14 – Alex Scarrow, British novelist
- February 24 – Alain Mabanckou, Francophone Congolese novelist
- March 4 – Dav Pilkey, American author and illustrator
- March 5 – Mark Z. Danielewski, American fiction author
- April 12 – Jim Duffy, Irish political writer
- April 15 – Cressida Cowell, English children's writer
- April 20 – David Chalmers, Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist
- April 26 – Natasha Trethewey, American poet
- July 4 – Brian Selznick, American children's writer and illustrator
- July 21 – Sarah Waters, Welsh novelist
- September 24 – Rhys Hughes, Welsh short-story writer
- October 7 – Sherman Alexie, Native-American poet and fiction writer
- October 19 – David Vann, Alaskan-born fiction writer and sailor
- November 17 – Jane Holland (Victoria Lamb, etc.), English poet and novelist
- November 22 – Mónica Montañés, Venezuelan screenwriter and journalist[18]
- November 30 – David Nicholls, English novelist and screenwriter[19]
- December 27 – Chris Abani, Nigerian poet and novelist
- December 29 – Christian Kracht, Swiss novelist and journalist
- unknown date – Helen Zahavi, English novelist and translator
Deaths
- January 18 – Kathleen Norris, American novelist (born 1880)[20]
- February 5 – Louisa Martindale, British physician, writer, magistrate and prison commissioner (born 1872)
- February 12 – Elio Vittorini, Italian novelist (born 1908)
- February 25 – Victor Kravchenko, Soviet writer (born 1905)[21]
- March 10 – Frank O'Connor, Irish short-story writer (born 1903)[22]
- April 1 – Brian O'Nolan (Flann O'Brien), Irish satirist (heart attack, born 1911)
- April 2 – C. S. Forester, English historical novelist (born 1899)
- April 10 (Easter Day) – Evelyn Waugh, English novelist, biographer and travel writer (heart failure, born 1903)
- April 13 – Georges Duhamel, French novelist (born 1884)
- May 7 – Stanisław Jerzy Lec, Polish aphorist and poet (born 1909)
- June 7
- June 10 – Henry Treece, English children's historical novelist and poet (born 1911)
- June 30 – Margery Allingham, English crime novelist (born 1904)[23]
- July 20
- July 25 – Frank O'Hara, American poet (ruptured liver, born 1926)
- August 2 or 3 – Tristan Klingsor (Léon Leclère), French fantaisiste poet, painter and musician (born 1874)
- August 6 – Cordwainer Smith (Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger), American science fiction author (heart attack, born 1913)
- August 12 – Artur Alliksaar, Estonian poet (cancer, born 1923)
- September 3 – Fu Lei, Chinese translator (born 1908)
- September 14 – Dorothy Whipple, English novelist and children's writer (born 1893)
- September 25 – Mina Loy, English-born poet and artist (born 1882)
- September 28 – André Breton, French Surrealist poet and author (born 1896)
- October 30 – Yórgos Theotokás, Greek novelist (born 1906)
- November 26 – Siegfried Kracauer, German journalist and critic (born 1889)
- December 23 – Heimito von Doderer, Austrian author (born 1896)[24]
Awards
Manuel Vicent, Pascua y naranjas
Ted Walker, Stevie Smith
Robin Fulton, Seamus Heaney, Hugo Williams
Frank Herbert, Dune and Roger Zelazny, ...And Call Me Conrad
Peter Mathers, Trap
Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Nelly Sachs
Vicente Soto, La zancada
Edmonde Charles-Roux, Oublier Palerme
Marie-Claire Blais, Une saison dans la vie d'Emmanuel
no award given
Katherine Anne Porter, Collected Stories
Richard Eberhart, Selected Poems
Alfonso Gatto, La storia delle vittime
Notes and References
- Web site: Boots Booklovers Library . Information Science Today . March 28, 2011 . October 25, 2014 . October 15, 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20141015050149/http://www.infosciencetoday.org/library-history/boots-booklovers-library.html . dead .
- News: Edward Bond's Saved: 'We didn't set out to shock'. Maddy. Costa. The Guardian. 2011-10-09. London.
- Book: Juviler, Peter H.. Univ. of Pennsylvania Press. 978-0-8122-3418-3. Freedom's Ordeal: The Struggle for Human Rights and Democracy in Post-Soviet States. Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights. 1998. 38.
- http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Roger_Verhulst_9_March_1966 "Letter to Roger Verhulst (9 March 1966)"
- News: Noël Coward's Skeleton Feast. The Times. London. 15 April 1966. 16.
- Book: Pearce, Joseph. Joseph Pearce
. Joseph Pearce. Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile. Ignatius Press. 2011. 184ff.
- Rigby . Graham . Two views of the Norrington Room . The Private Library . 7 . 4 . Winter 1966 . 84–6.
- Belanger, Craig. "Frank O'Hara." Frank O'Hara (2005): 1. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Web. May 12, 2011.
- News: 2016-08-28 . The Guardian . London . John . Dugdale . From squib to superstar . 5 (Review).
- http://www.georgepadmoreinstitute.org/the-pioneering-years/gallery-of-publications/foundations–1966 "Foundations (1966)"
- Web site: Structure, Sign, Play. 2021-05-12. hydra.humanities.uci.edu.
- [George Plimpton]
- Book: Ananda Lal. Reader in English Ananda Lal. The Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre. 2004. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-564446-3. 345.
- Vinson, James. Twentieth-Century Romance and Gothic Writers. Macmillan, 1982. Page=253
- Klein, Holger. J.B. Priestley's Fiction. Peter Lang, 2002. Page 318
- Lacayo . Richard . Time magazine list of All-Time 100 Novels . https://web.archive.org/web/20051022173919/http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/0,24459,wide_sargasso_sea,00.html . dead . 22 October 2005 . Time . 16 October 2005 . 2 January 2011.
- Book: Hahn, Daniel . The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature . 2015 . Oxford University Press . New York . 978-0-19-871554-2 . 2-3 . 2nd.
- Web site: Dubraska. Falcón. 2012-11-19. Mónica Montañés: "El escritor necesita la distancia". 2016-10-16. eluniversal.com.
- Web site: One Day author David Nicholls on writing the British love story that's left the world heartbroken. BBC. 2024-04-23. 2024-05-11. Armstrong. Neil.
- Web site: Kathleen Norris Obituary. The New York Times. July 15, 2024.
- Kern, G. (2007) The Kravchenko Case: One Man's War on Stalin, Enigma Books,
- Book: Frank O'Connor. My Father's Son. Syracuse University Press. 1999. 9780815605645. 7.
- Book: Jessica Mann. Deadlier Than the Male: An Investigation Into Feminine Crime Writing. David & Charles. 1981. 9780715378779. 209.
- Book: Austrian Information. 1996. Information Department of the Austrian Consulate General. 5.
