1964 In Literature

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Events

January 10 – Federico García Lorca's play The House of Bernarda Alba, completed just before his assassination in 1936, receives its first performance in Spain.
January 12 – The Royal Shakespeare Company Experimental Group open a four-week Theatre of Cruelty season at the LAMDA Theatre Club, London.
January 23 – Arthur Miller's play After the Fall opens at the ANTA Washington Square Theatre Off-Broadway in New York City, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Jason Robards and Kazan's wife Barbara Loden. A semi-autobiographical work, it arouses controversy over Miller's portrayal of his late ex-wife Marilyn Monroe.
February 11 – A London retailer, in the case of R. v. Gold, is found guilty under section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 of stocking a 1963 edition of John Cleland's novel Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 1748–1749).
February 28 – The Dutch comic artist and writer Jan Cremer publishes his autobiographical novel I, Jan Cremer, which provokes controversy for its frank content and style and becomes a bestseller.
April 23 – Shakespeare Birthplace Trust opens the Shakespeare Centre in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, to house its library and research facilities.
April 29 – Peter Weiss's play with music Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean Paul Marats dargestellt durch die Schauspielgruppe des Hospizes zu Charenton unter Anleitung des Herrn de Sade (The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, known as Marat/Sade) premières at the Schiller Theater in West Berlin. In August it receives its English-language première by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London at the Aldwych Theatre.
May – Michael Moorcock becomes editor of the science fiction magazine New Worlds.
May 5 – W. H. Auden's preface to the anthology The Protestant Mystics describes the supernatural "Vision of Agape" he experienced in June 1933.
May 6 – Joe Orton's black comedy Entertaining Mr Sloane premières at the New Arts Theatre in London with Dudley Sutton in the title rôle.
May 29 – Le Théâtre du Soleil is established as a collective avant-garde stage ensemble by Ariane Mnouchkine, Philippe Léotard and fellow students of L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris. It opens with Les Petits Bourgeois (adapted from Maxim Gorky's Мещане), at Théâtre Mouffetard.
June 22 – Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer is allowed to circulate legally in the United States by the U.S. Supreme Court three decades after its publication in France, after the U.S. Supreme Court, in Grove Press, Inc. v. Gerstein, cites Jacobellis v. Ohio (decided the same day) and overrules state court findings that the book is obscene.
August 11 – Ian Fleming walks to the Royal St George's Golf Club near Sandwich, Kent, for lunch with friends, collapsing shortly afterward with a heart attack. His last recorded words are an apology to the ambulance drivers: "I am sorry to trouble you chaps. I don't know how you get along so fast with the traffic on the roads these days." Fleming dies next day.
September – The Everyman Theatre opens in Liverpool, England.
September 28 – Brian Friel's play Philadelphia, Here I Come! is premièred at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin.
October 28 – The Wednesday Play is broadcast for the first time on BBC1 television, presenting original one-off contemporary social drama, mostly written for television.

New books

Births

January 26 – Peter Braunstein, American journalist and playwright
February 23 – Joseph O'Neill, Irish-born writer
March 7 – Bret Easton Ellis, American novelist, screenwriter and short-story writer
March 21 – Kaori Ekuni (江國香織), Japanese novelist
April 9 – Margaret Peterson Haddix, American children's author
June 5 – Rick Riordan, American young-adult author
June 7 – Petr Hruška, Czech poet
June 11 – Dan Chaon, American novelist and short-story writer
June 22 – Dan Brown, American novelist and mystery writer
June 26 – Conor Kostick, Irish historian and children's author
July 3 – Joanne Harris, English novelist
July 7 – Karina Galvez, Ecuadorian poet
July 16 – Anne Provoost, Flemish novelist and essayist
August 22 – Diane Setterfield, British author
September 9 – Aleksandar Hemon, Bosnian novelist and short-story writer
September 19
- Patrick Marber, English comedian, playwright, director, puppeteer, actor and screenwriter
- Yvonne Vera, Zimbabwean novelist (died 2005)
September 25
- Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Spanish novelist (died 2020)
- Gareth Thompson, English children's author
December 12 – J. R. Moehringer, American journalist and ghostwriter
December 26 – Elizabeth Kostova, American author
December 29 – Christine Leunens, American-born Belgian-New Zealand novelist
unknown dates
- Ros Barber, English novelist and poet
- Ge Fei (格非, real name: Liu Yong, 刘勇), Chinese novelist
- Mai Jia (real name: Jiǎng Běnhǔ, 蒋本浒), Chinese novelist
- Nell Zink, American novelist

Deaths

January 17 – T. H. White, English novelist (heart condition, born 1906)
February 1 – Sigge Stark (Signe Björnberg), Swedish writer (born 1896)
February 3 – Clarence Irving Lewis, American philosopher (born 1883)
February 15 – Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, French theologian (born 1877)
February 25 – Grace Metalious (Marie Grace DeRepentigny), American novelist (cirrhosis of liver, born 1924)
March 1 – Davíð Stefánsson, Icelandic poet (born 1895)
March 17 – Păstorel Teodoreanu, Romanian poet and satirist (lung cancer, born 1894)
March 20 – Brendan Behan, Irish playwright, poet and writer (born 1923)
April 9 – Mihu Dragomir, Romanian poet, journalist and short story writer (heart attack, born 1919)
April 14 – Rachel Carson, American environmentalist (breast cancer, born 1907)
April 18 – Ben Hecht, American screenwriter (born 1894)
April 23 – Karl Polanyi (Károly Polányi), Austro-Hungarian economic historian and social philosopher (born 1886)
April 26 – E. J. Pratt, Canadian poet (born 1882)
May 13 – Hamilton Basso, American novelist and journalist (born 1904)
July 6 – Ion Vinea, Romanian poet, novelist, and journalist (cancer, born 1895)
July 29 – Wanda Wasilewska, Polish Soviet novelist and journalist (heart disease, born 1905)
August 3 – Flannery O'Connor, American essayist and fiction writer (born 1925)
August 5 – Moa Martinson, Swedish author (born 1890)
August 12 – Ian Fleming, English spy thriller writer (heart attack, born 1908)
August 17 – Mihai Ralea, Romanian critic and sociologist of literature (born 1896)
September 5 – Angel Cruchaga Santa María, Chilean writer (born 1893)
September 6 – San Tiago Dantas, Brazilian journalist (born 1911)
September 14 – Vasily Grossman, Soviet novelist (cancer, born 1905)
September 18 – Seán O'Casey, Irish dramatist and memoirist (born 1880)
October 26 – Agnes Miegel, German author, journalist and poet (born 1879)
c. November – Radu D. Rosetti, Romanian poet and playwright (born 1874)
November 21 – Leah Bodine Drake, American poet, editor and critic (cancer, born 1914)
November 29 – Anne de Vries, Dutch novelist (born 1904)
December 9 – Dame Edith Sitwell, English poet and critic (born 1887)
December 21 – Carl Van Vechten, American writer and photographer (born 1880)

Awards

Nobel Prize for literature – Jean-Paul Sartre (refused)

Canada

See 1964 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

Prix Goncourt: Georges Conchon, L'Etat sauvage
Prix Médicis: Monique Wittig, L’Opoponax

United Kingdom

Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Sheena Porter, Nordy Bank
Eric Gregory Award: Robert Nye, Ken Smith, Jean Symons, Ted Walker
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Frank Tuohy, The Ice Saints
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Elizabeth Longford, Victoria R.I.
Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: R. S. Thomas

United States

American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Lillian Hellman
Hugo Award: Clifford D. Simak, Way Station
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Emily Cheney Neville, It's Like This, Cat
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: no award given
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Louis Simpson: At The End Of The Open Road

Elsewhere

Miles Franklin Award: George Johnston, My Brother Jack
Premio Nadal: Alfredo Martínez Garrido, El miedo y la esperanza
Viareggio Prize: Giuseppe Berto, Il male oscuro

Notes

Hahn, Daniel (2015). The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (2nd ed.). Oxford. University Press. ISBN 9780198715542.

References

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1964 In Literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction