1970 in literature explained

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1970.

Events

• January 16 – The Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus opens with a performance of Georg Büchner's Dantons Tod.^[1]
• March – Magdalena Mouján's story "" ("We and Ours") in Basque is suppressed by the authorities in Francoist Spain.^[2]
• June 10 – The English novelist Anthony Burgess delivers an inflammatory lecture, "Obscenity and the Arts", at the University of Malta; its reception leads to him leaving Malta.^[3] He has begun a novel that will become Earthly Powers (1980).
• June 17 – The première of David Storey's play Home at the Royal Court Theatre, London, is directed by Lindsay Anderson and stars Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson.^[4]
• August 21 – The Penguin Books paperback imprint is acquired by Pearson PLC, following the death of its owner Sir Allen Lane.^[5]
• August 27 – Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company introduces a revolutionary production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Peter Brook, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.^[6]
• November 20 – The playwright Fadil Paçrami becomes Chairman of the Parliament of Albania.^[7]
• November 25 – In Tokyo, the Japanese author and Tatenokai militia leader Yukio Mishima (45) and others take over the headquarters of the Japan Self-Defense Forces in an attempted coup d'état. Mishima commits seppuku (public ritual suicide) when he fails to sway the public to his right-wing politics, which include restoring the powers of the Emperor.
• December 5 – Dario Fo premières his play Accidental Death of an Anarchist at Varese in Italy.
• unknown dates
  • Len Deighton's Bomber, set on June 31 [''sic.''] 1943, becomes the first published novel to have been written on a word processor, an IBM MT/ST.^[8]
  • The novel Deliverance by the American poet James Dickey is published; it will go on to be named among the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by an editorial board of the American Modern Library.^[9]
  • An unexpurgated edition of John Cleland's Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 1748–1749) appears in the U.K. without legal challenge.^[10]
  • Bohumil Hrabal's books (Home Work) and (Buds) are suppressed by the communist authorities in Czechoslovakia.

New books

Fiction

• Dritëro Agolli – (Commissar Memo)
• Poul Anderson – Tau Zero
• Abdelhamid ben Hadouga - The South Wind (novel)
• Thomas Berger – Vital Parts
• Thomas Bernhard – The Lime Works
• Melvyn Bragg – A Place in England
• John Braine – Stay with Me Till Morning
• Wallace Breem – Eagle in the Snow^[11]
• Jimmy Breslin – The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight
• Agatha Christie – Passenger to Frankfurt
• Robertson Davies – Fifth Business
• L. Sprague de Camp
  • The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales
  • Warlocks and Warriors (ed.)
• Samuel R. Delany – The Fall of the Towers (trilogy)
• Michel Déon – Les Poneys sauvages
• James Dickey – Deliverance
• Joan Didion – Play It as It Lays
• José Donoso – The Obscene Bird of Night
• Lawrence Durrell – Nunquam
• Vincent Eri – The Crocodile
• Nuruddin Farah – From a Crooked Rib
• J. G. Farrell – Troubles
• Juan Goytisolo – Count Julian
• Pierre Guyotat - Eden, Eden, Eden
• L. P. Hartley – My Sisters' Keeper
• Anne Hébert – Kamouraska
• Ernest Hemingway – Islands in the Stream
• Susan Hill – I'm the King of the Castle
• Pamela Hansford Johnson – The Honours Board
• Anna Kavan – Julia and the Bazooka
• Jaan Kross – Between Three Plagues (part 1)
• Halldór Laxness –
• Ira Levin – This Perfect Day
• Mario Levrero – La ciudad
• H. P. Lovecraft – The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions
• Peter Lovesey – Wobble to Death
• John D. MacDonald – The Long Lavender Look
• Eric Malpass – Oh My Darling Daughter
• Ngaio Marsh – When in Rome
• Yukio Mishima – The Decay of the Angel (; last in The Sea of Fertility tetralogy)
• Brian Moore – Fergus
• Toni Morrison – The Bluest Eye
• Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk – Harpoon of the Hunter
• Larry Niven – Ringworld
• John Jay Osborn, Jr. – The Paper Chase
• Abel Posse –
• Mary Renault – Fire from Heaven
• Kurban Said – Ali and Nino
• Erich Segal – Love Story
• Sidney Sheldon – The Naked Face
• Clark Ashton Smith – Other Dimensions
• Manuel Scorza – Drums for Rancas
• Muriel Spark – The Driver's Seat
• Mary Stewart – The Crystal Cave
• Alan Sillitoe – A Start in Life
• Leon Uris – QB VII
• Jack Vance – The Pnume
• Gore Vidal – Two Sisters
• Patrick White – The Vivisector
• Venedikt Yerofeyev – Moscow-Petushki (Moscow to the End of the Line; samizdat publication)
• Roger Zelazny – Nine Princes in Amber

Children and young people

• Lloyd Alexander – The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian^[12]
• Rev. W. Awdry – Duke the lost Engine (twenty-fifth in The Railway Series of 42 books by him and his son Christopher Awdry)
• Richard Bach – Jonathan Livingston Seagull
• Nina Bawden – The Birds on the Trees
• Judy Blume – Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret^[13]
• John Burningham – Mr Gumpy's Outing
• Betsy Byars – Summer of the Swans
• John Christopher (Sam Youd) – The Guardians (science fiction)
• Roald Dahl – Fantastic Mr Fox^[14]
• Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen – The God Beneath the Sea
• Judith Kerr – Mog the Forgetful Cat (first in the Mog series of 17 books)
• Ruth Manning-Sanders – A Book of Devils and Demons
• Dr. Seuss – Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?^[15]
• Ruth Park
  • The Muddle-Headed Wombat in the Springtime
  • The Muddle-Headed Wombat on the River
• Bill Peet
  • The Whingdingdilly
  • The Wump World
• Maurice Sendak – In the Night Kitchen
• Isaac Bashevis Singer – A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw
• E. B. White – The Trumpet Of The Swan
• Annette Tison and Talus Taylor - Barbapapa

Drama

• Ama Ata Aidoo – Anowa
• Robert Bolt – Vivat! Vivat Regina!
• Dario Fo – Accidental Death of an Anarchist
• Michael Frayn – The Two of Us (4 1-act plays)
• Trevor Griffiths – Occupations
• Christopher Hampton – The Philanthropist
• Lorraine Hansberry – Les Blancs
• Welcome Msomi – uMabatha
• Terence Rattigan – A Bequest to the Nation
• Anthony Shaffer – Sleuth
• Alexander Vampilov – Duck Hunting (published; first performed 1976)
• Derek Walcott – Dream on Monkey Mountain

Poetry

See main article: 1970 in poetry.

• L. Sprague de Camp – Demons and Dinosaurs
• Ted Hughes – Crow

Non-fiction

• Theodor W. Adorno (posthumously) – Aesthetic Theory (Asthetische Theorie)
• Hannah Arendt – On Violence
• Roland Barthes – S/Z
• Pierre Berton – The National Dream
• Jim Bouton – Ball Four
• Dee Brown – Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
• James MacGregor Burns –
• Henri Charrière – Papillon
• Elizabeth David – Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen
• Edward De Bono – Lateral Thinking: creativity step by step
• August Derleth –
• Michel Foucault – (The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences)
• Germaine Greer – The Female Eunuch
• Helene Hanff – 84 Charing Cross Road
• Arthur Janov – The Primal Scream
• Uwe Johnson – Anniversaries. From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl (German: Jahrestage: Aus dem Leben von Gesine Cresspahl; begins publication)
• Hal Lindsey – The Late Great Planet Earth
• Christopher Lloyd – The Well-Tempered Garden
• Norman Mailer – Of a Fire on the Moon
• Dumas Malone – Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801-1805
• Mahathir Mohamad – The Malay Dilemma
• Kate Millett – Sexual Politics
• Nancy Mitford – Frederick the Great
• Robin Morgan (ed.) –
• Harold Perkin – The Age of the Railway
• J. B. Priestley – The Edwardians
• Albert Speer – Inside the Third Reich
• Alvin Toffler – Future Shock

Births

• January 25 – Stephen Chbosky, American novelist and screenwriter
• February 28 – Daniel Handler, American novelist
• March 6 – Simona Vinci, Italian fiction writer
• March 12 – Dave Eggers, American writer, editor and publisher
• March 20 – Michele Jaffe, American author
• March 26 – Martin McDonagh, British-born Irish playwright
• May 20 – Dorthe Nors, Danish fiction writer
• May 26 – Alex Garland, English novelist
• June 6 – Sarah Dessen, American novelist
• July 22 – Doug Johnstone, Scottish crime fiction writer
• August 27 - Ann Aguirre, American speculative fiction writer
• September 10 – Phaswane Mpe, South African novelist (died 2004)
• September 16 – Nick Sagan, American novelist and screenwriter
• October 27 – Jonathan Stroud, English fantasy writer
• November 7 – Chris Adrian, American novelist
• November 24 – Marlon James, Jamaican novelist
• November 27 – Han Kang, South Korean novelist
• December 21 – Mohamedou Ould Salahi, Mauritanian author and former Guantánamo detainee
• unknown dates
  • Raja'a Alem, Saudi Arabian writer^[16]
  • Roberta Dapunt, Italian poet^[17]
  • Nathan Englander, American novelist and short story writer^[18]
  • Neel Mukherjee, Indian novelist^[19]
  • Faruk Šehić, Bosnian poet and fiction writer

Deaths

• January 10 – Charles Olson, American modernist poet (liver cancer, born 1910)
• January 29 – B. H. Liddell Hart, English military historian (born 1895)
• February 2 – Bertrand Russell, English philosopher (born 1872)^[20]
• February 4 – Louise Bogan, American poet (born 1897)^[21]
• February 20 – Sophie Treadwell, American dramatist and journalist (born 1885)^[22]
• February 21 – Johannes Semper, Estonian writer, translator and politician (born 1892)^[23]
• March 11 – Erle Stanley Gardner, American writer (born 1889)^[24]
• March 15 – Arthur Adamov, Russian-French playwright (born 1908)^[25]
• March 21 – Marlen Haushofer, Austrian novelist (born 1920)
• March 29 – Vera Brittain, English novelist, memoirist and poet (born 1893)^[26]
• April 11 – John O'Hara, American novelist (cardiovascular disease, born 1905)^[27]
• May 7 – Jack Jones, Welsh novelist (born 1884)^[28]
• May 12 – Nelly Sachs, Jewish German poet and dramatist (born 1891)^[29]
• June 2 – Giuseppe Ungaretti, Italian modernist poet and writer (born 1888)
• June 3 – Ruth Sawyer, American children's writer and novelist (born 1880)
• June 7 – E. M. Forster, English novelist (born 1879)^[30]
• June 16 – Elsa Triolet, French novelist (born 1896)^[31]
• July 7 – Allen Lane, English publisher (born 1902)^[32]
• July 15 – Eric Berne, Canadian-born psychiatrist and author (heart attack, born 1910)
• September 1 – François Mauriac, French novelist (born 1885)^[33]
• September 25 – Erich Maria Remarque, German novelist (All Quiet On The Western Front) (born 1898)^[34]
• September 28 – John Dos Passos, American novelist (born 1896)^[35]
• October 18 – Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Irish language writer (born 1906)^[36]
• November 23 – Alf Prøysen, Norwegian author, musician and children's writer (born 1914)^[37]
• November 25 – Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫), Japanese author (seppuku, born 1925)^[38]
• unknown date – Racey Helps, English children's author and illustrator (born 1913)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Canada

• See 1970 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt

Michel Tournier, Le Roi des Aulnes

• Prix Médicis French: Camille Bourniquel, Sélinonte ou la Chambre impériale
• Prix Médicis International: Luigi Malerba, Saut de la mort

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize

Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member

• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen, The God Beneath the Sea
• Cholmondeley Award

Kathleen Raine, Douglas Livingstone, Edward Brathwaite

• Eric Gregory Award

Helen Frye, Paul Mills, John Mole, Brian Morse, Alan Perry, Richard Tibbitts

• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Lily Powell, The Bird of Paradise
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry

Roy Fuller

United States

• Hugo Award

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

• Nebula Award

Larry Niven, Ringworld

• Newbery Medal for children's literature: William H. Armstrong, Sounder
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama

Charles Gordone, No Place To Be Somebody^[39]

• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

Jean Stafford, Collected Stories

• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

Richard Howard, Untitled Subjects

Elsewhere

• Miles Franklin Award

Dal Stivens, A Horse of Air^[40]

• Alfaguara Prize

Carlos Droguett, Todas esas muertes

• Premio Nadal

Jesús Fernández Santos, Libro de las memorias de las cosas

• Viareggio Prize

Nello Saito, Dentro e fuori

Notes

• Book: Hahn . Daniel . The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature . 2015 . Oxford. University Press . 9780198715542 . 2nd.

Notes and References

1. News: Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus . nrw-buehnen.de . de . 2013-07-19 . 2014-02-23 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140223181034/http://www.nrw-buehnen.de/buehnen/detail.php?id_adr=23415&event_account=15931&id_language=1 . dead .
2. Book: Michael Ashley. The History of the Science-fiction Magazine. 2000. Liverpool University Press. 978-1-84631-003-4. 411.
3. Web site: Anthony Burgess's censorship scandal in Malta: a timeline. International Anthony Burgess Foundation . 21 August 2020.
4. News: Alighting in the Confines of a Lonely Cuckoo's Nest. Genzlinger, Neil. The New York Times. 8 December 2006.
5. Web site: Pearson Timeline. https://web.archive.org/web/20141020151110/http://www.ulib.niu.edu/publishers/Pearson.htm. dead. 2014-10-20. The Academic Publishing Industry: A Story of Merger and Acquisition. Mary H.. Munroe. 2004. Northern Illinois University.
6. Web site: Clive . Barnes . Historic Staging of Dream . . 1970-08-28 . 2010-06-23.
7. Book: Avatars of Intellectuals Under Communism. Zeta Books. 2011. 9786068266145. 81.
8. Web site: The Book-Writing Machine: What was the first novel ever written on a word processor? . . 2013-03-01 . 20 August 2020 . Kirschenbaum . Matthew.
9. News: 100 Best Novels . Modern Library . 1998.
10. Book: John Sutherland. Offensive Literature: Decensorship in Britain, 1960-1982. 1983. Rowman & Littlefield. 978-0-389-20354-4. 39–.
11. Mench . Fred . 2003 . Maximus to the Rescue . Archaeology . 56 . 5 . 60 . EBSCOhost.
12. Hahn 2015, p.14
13. Hahn 2015, p. 76
14. Hahn 2015, p, 199
15. Book: Barone . Diane M. . Children's Literature in the Classroom: Engaging Lifelong Readers . 8 March 2011 . Guilford Press . 978-1-60623-940-7 . 67 . en.
16. Web site: Raja Alem: "All my life, i tried to break the frame". 20 November 2017. KAWA. 21 August 2020.
17. Web site: Roberta Dapunt, info e libri dell'autore. Giulio Einaudi Editore. . Einaudi . 22 August 2020 . it-IT.
18. Web site: Nathan Englander. American Academy in Berlin. 21 August 2020.
19. Web site: Neel Mukherjeewebsite=Royal Society of Literature. 21 August 2020.
20. Book: Jagdish . Mehra . Jagdish Mehra. Helmut . Rechenberg . Helmut Rechenberg. The Historical Development of Quantum Theory. 28 December 2000. Springer Science & Business Media. 978-0-387-95178-2. 44.
21. Book: Eric L. Haralson. Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century. 21 January 2014. Routledge. 978-1-317-76322-2. 96.
22. Book: Louise Heck-Rabi. Sophie Treadwell: Subjects and Structures in 20th Century American Drama. Wayne State University. 1976. 181.
23. Book: Aleksandr Mikhaĭlovich Prokhorov. Great Soviet Encyclopedia. 1973. Macmillan. 327.
24. Book: Harold Bloom. Modern Mystery Writers. 1995. Chelsea House Publishers. 978-0-7910-2375-4. 76.
25. Book: Meanjin Quarterly. 1970. University of Melbourne. 338.
26. Book: Harold Oxbury. Great Britons: Twentieth-century Lives. 1985. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-211599-7. 48.
27. Book: Pennsylvania Biographical Dictionary. Somerset Publishers. 1999. 234. 0403099501.
28. s2-JONE-JAC-1884. Jones, Jack (1884-1970), author and playwright. Keri Edwards. 2001. 2 June 2022.
29. Book: Leo Baeck Institute. Catalog of the Archival Collections. 1990. Mohr Siebeck. 978-3-16-145597-1. 124.
30. Book: Norman Page. E-M-Forster. 22 January 1988. Macmillan International Higher Education. 978-1-349-19008-9. 16.
31. Book: Gale Cengage. Modern French Poets. 2002. Gale Group. 978-0-7876-5252-4. 32.
32. Web site: About Penguin: Company history . Penguin Books . 2013-11-01 . https://web.archive.org/web/20111101142744/http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/aboutus/aboutpenguin_companyhistory.html . 2011-11-01 . dead.
33. Book: Bernard A. Cook. Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia. 2001. Taylor & Francis. 978-0-8153-4058-4. 840.
34. Book: Konzett, Matthias . Encyclopedia of German Literature . Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers . Chicago . 2000 . 9781135941222 . 814.
35. Book: Jay Parini. The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. 2004. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-515653-9. 397.
36. Book: Igoe, Vivien . Dublin burial grounds & graveyards . Wolfhound Press . Dublin . 2001 . 9780863278723 . 179.
37. Web site: Alf Prøysen, 1914–1970. Norsk Oversetterleksikon . Ove Røsbak. July 1, 2019. no.
38. Book: Henry Scott Stokes. The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima. 2000. Rowman & Littlefield. 978-0-8154-1074-4. 249.
39. Book: Elizabeth A. Brennan. Elizabeth C. Clarage. Who's who of Pulitzer Prize Winners. 1999. Greenwood Publishing Group. 978-1-57356-111-2. 120.
40. Book: Contemporary Novelists. 1972. St. James Press. 1188.