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thumb|right|[[Samuel Beckett in 1977]]

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1952.

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Events

  • February – The historical periodical Past & Present is launched in Oxford, England.
  • February 29 – Derek J. de Solla Price reveals his discovery of a lost medieval scientific work entitled Equatorie of the Planetis, initially attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer, in the Times Literary Supplement.
  • March 3 – J. L. Carr takes over as Headmaster of Highfields Primary School, Kettering, which will later feature in his novel The Harpole Report.
  • May – The works of André Gide are placed on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books by Pope Pius XII.
  • July 10 – The first issue of Mad appears, edited by Harvey Kurtzman and published by William M. Gaines' EC Comics.
  • August 12 – The Night of the Murdered Poets brings the execution of 13 Soviet Jews in Lubyanka Prison, Moscow, including several writers.
  • September 6 – The Universal Copyright Convention is adopted at Geneva.
  • October 17 – Samuel Beckett's play Waiting For Godot is published in Paris as En attendant Godot by Les Éditions de Minuit.
  • October 28 – E. E. Cummings delivers the first of his Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard University.
  • November 25 – Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap opens at the New Ambassadors Theatre, London. It will still be running as of 2021, next door at St Martin's Theatre from 1974.
  • unknown dates
  • The publisher Diogenes Verlag is founded in Zürich, Switzerland, by Daniel Keel.
  • The National Library of Burma is established in Rangoon.

New books

Fiction

  • Margery Allingham – The Tiger in the Smoke
  • Anthony Armstrong – He Was Found in the Road
  • Thomas Armstrong – Adam Brunskill
  • Isaac Asimov
  • The Currents of Space
  • Foundation and Empire
  • H. E. Bates – Love for Lydia
  • Margot Bennett – The Widow of Bath
  • John Bingham – My Name Is Michael Sibley
  • Christianna Brand – London Particular
  • Pearl S. Buck – The Hidden Flower
  • John Bude
  • Death on the Riviera
  • When the Case Was Opened
  • Ivan Bunin – The Life of Arseniev
  • Italo Calvino
  • The Argentine Ant (La Formica Argentina)
  • The Cloven Viscount (l visconte dimezzato, first of the Our Ancestors trilogy)
  • Victor Canning – The House of the Seven Flies
  • John Dickson Carr
  • The Nine Wrong Answers
  • Behind the Crimson Blind (as Carter Dickson)
  • Henry Cecil – No Bail for the Judge
  • Louis-Ferdinand Céline – Fable for Another Time
  • Agatha Christie
  • Mrs McGinty's Dead
  • They Do It with Mirrors
  • A Daughter's a Daughter (as Mary Westmacott)
  • Brian Cleeve – The Far Hills
  • Branko Ćopić – Prolom (The Break-out)
  • Thomas B. Costain – The Silver Chalice
  • A. J. Cronin – Adventures in Two Worlds
  • August Derleth
  • Three Problems for Solar Pons
  • Night's Yawning Peal: A Ghostly Company (as editor)
  • David F. Dodge – To Catch a Thief
  • Jean Dutourd – The Best Butter
  • Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man
  • Jeffrey Farnol – Waif of the River
  • Edna Ferber – Giant
  • C. S. Forester – Lieutenant Hornblower
  • Paul Gallico – The Small Miracle
  • Anthony Gilbert – Miss Pinnegar Disappears
  • Michael Gilbert – Death in Captivity
  • Jean Giono – The Malediction
  • Richard Gordon – Doctor in the House
  • Winston Graham – Fortune Is a Woman
  • Walter Greenwood – So Brief the Spring
  • Edward Grierson – Reputation for a Song
  • Vasily Grossman – Stalingrad («Сталингра́д»)
  • Han Suyin – A Many-Splendoured Thing
  • Robert A. Heinlein – The Rolling Stones
  • Ernest Hemingway – The Old Man and the Sea
  • Willem Frederik Hermans – ' (The House of Refuge or An Untouched House, novella)
  • Patricia Highsmith – The Price of Salt (as Claire Morgan)
  • Dorothy B. Hughes – The Davidian Report
  • Hammond Innes – Campbell's Kingdom
  • Michael Innes – A Private View
  • Ernst Jünger – Visit to Godenholm
  • Frances Parkinson Keyes – Steamboat Gothic
  • David H. Keller – Tales from Underwood
  • Arthur Koestler – Arrow in the Blue
  • Halldór Laxness – Gerpla
  • Doris Lessing – Martha Quest
  • E. C. R. Lorac
  • Crossed Skis
  • The Dog It Was That Died
  • Murder in the Mill-Race
  • Edgar Lustgarten – Game for Three Losers
  • Ross Macdonald – The Ivory Grin
  • Compton Mackenzie – The Rival Monster
  • Bernard Malamud – The Natural
  • Wolf Mankowitz – Make Me an Offer
  • Ana Maria Matute – Fiesta al noroeste
  • Gladys Mitchell – The Echoing Strangers
  • Harry Mulisch – Archibald Strohalm
  • C. L. Moore – Judgment Night (science fiction short stories)
  • R. K. Narayan – The Financial Expert
  • Patrick O'Brian – Testimonies
  • Flannery O'Connor – Wise Blood
  • Vin Packer – Spring Fire
  • Anthony Powell – A Buyer's Market
  • Maurice Procter – Rich Is the Treasure
  • John Pudney – The Net
  • Barbara Pym – Excellent Women
  • Ellery Queen – The King is Dead
  • Lucien Rebatet – Les Deux étendards
  • John Rhode – Death in Wellington Road
  • Anne Scott-James – In the Mink
  • Charles Shaw – Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
  • John Steinbeck – East of Eden
  • Rex Stout
  • Triple Jeopardy
  • Prisoner's Base
  • Noel Streatfeild – Aunt Clara
  • A. C. Swinburne (died 1909) – Lesbia Brandon (completed c.1868)
  • Edith Templeton – The Island of Desire
  • Jim Thompson – The Killer Inside Me
  • Agnes Sligh Turnbull – The Gown of Glory
  • Amos Tutuola – The Palm-Wine Drunkard
  • Sachchidananda Vatsyayan (Agyeya) – Nadi ke dweep (Islands in the stream)
  • Vercors – Les Animaux dénaturés
  • Arved Viirlaid – (Graves Without Crosses)
  • Kurt Vonnegut – Player Piano
  • Henry Wade – Be Kind to the Killer
  • Evelyn Waugh – Men at Arms
  • Hillary Waugh – Last Seen Wearing...
  • Antonia White – The Sugar House
  • Vaughan Wilkins – A King Reluctant
  • Angus Wilson – Hemlock and After
  • Frank Yerby – The Saracen Blade

Children and young people

  • Rev. W. Awdry – Toby the Tram Engine (seventh in The Railway Series of 42 books by him and his son Christopher Awdry)
  • Enid Blyton – Noddy and Big Ears
  • Bruce Carter – The Perilous Descent (Into a Strange Lost World)
  • Alice Dalgliesh – The Bears on Hemlock Mountain
  • Dorothy Edwards – My Naughty Little Sister. Stories from "Listen With Mother"
  • Rumer Godden – Mouse House
  • C. S. Lewis – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
  • Eloise Jarvis McGraw – Moccasin Trail
  • Farley Mowat – People of the Deer
  • Mary Norton – The Borrowers (first in the eponymous series of 6 books)
  • Rhoda Power – Redcap Runs Away
  • William Matthew Scott – The Cherrys of River House (first in The Cherrys series of 14 books)
  • Louis Slobodkin – The Space Ship Under the Apple Tree
  • Geoffrey Trease – The Crown of Violet (also Web of Traitors)
  • E. B. White – Charlotte's Web

Drama

<onlyinclude>

  • Rodney Ackland – The Pink Room
  • Jean Anouilh
  • The Lark (L'Alouette)
  • The Waltz of the Toreadors (La Valse des toréadors)
  • Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot
  • Jacinto Benavente – '
  • Alice Childress – Gold Through the Trees
  • Agatha Christie – The Mousetrap
  • John Clements – The Happy Marriage
  • Noël Coward – Quadrille
  • Constance Cox – Lord Arthur Savile's Crime
  • Robertson Davies – A Masque of Aesop
  • Henry de Montherlant – La Ville dont le prince est un enfant (The City Whose Prince is a Child; first performance in first published version)
  • Friedrich Dürrenmatt – The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi (Die Ehe des Herrn Mississippi, first performance)
  • Janet Green – Murder Mistaken
  • Michael Clayton Hutton – Dead Secret
  • Peter Jones – Sweet Madness
  • Joseph Kramm – The Shrike
  • Charles Langbridge Morgan – The River Line
  • Eric Linklater – The Mortimer Touch
  • Roger MacDougall – Escapade
  • Raymond Massey – Hanging Judge
  • Charles Morgan – The River Line
  • Ralph Peterson – The Square Ring
  • J. B. Priestley and Jacquetta Hawkes – Dragon's Mouth
  • Terence Rattigan – The Deep Blue Sea
  • Dodie Smith – Letter from Paris
  • Ben Travers – Wild Horses
  • Gerald Verner – Meet Mr. Callaghan
  • John Van Druten – I've Got Sixpence</onlyinclude>
  • Arthur Watkyn – The Moonraker

Poetry

  • Paul Celan – Poppy and Memory ()
  • David Jones – The Anathemata: fragments of an attempted writing
  • Gabriela Mistral – Los sonetos de la muerte y otros poemas elegíacos
  • Sean O Riordain – Eireaball Spideoige

Non-fiction

  • Roland Bainton – The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century
  • John Bowlby – Maternal Care and Mental Health
  • L. Sprague de Camp and Willy Ley – Lands Beyond
  • Dorothy Day – The Long Loneliness
  • Lawrence Gowing – Vermeer
  • Heinrich Harrer – Sieben Jahre in Tibet. Mein Leben am Hofe des Dalai Lama (Seven Years in Tibet, 1954)
  • Aldous Huxley
  • The Devils of Loudun
  • Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
  • Shepherd Mead – How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
  • Maurice Nicoll – Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky
  • Norman Vincent Peale – The Power of Positive Thinking
  • Gwen Raverat – Period Piece
  • P. R. Reid – The Colditz Story
  • Jean-Paul Sartre – Saint Genet, comédien et martyr
  • Pierre Schaeffer – In Search of a Concrete Music (À la Recherche d'une Musique Concrète)
  • F. Sherwood Taylor – The Alchemists
  • Paul Tillich – Courage To Be
  • Immanuel Velikovsky – Ages in Chaos
  • J. M. Wallace-Hadrill – The Barbarian West, 400–1000
  • Raymond Williams – Drama from Ibsen to Eliot

Births

  • January 4 – Michele Wallace, American feminist author
  • January 12 – Walter Mosley, American novelist
  • January 21 – Louis Menand, American author and academic
  • February 10 – Gail Rebuck, English publisher
  • February 19
  • Ryū Murakami (村上 龍), Japanese novelist, essayist and filmmaker
  • Amy Tan, American novelist
  • February 29 – Tim Powers, American fantasy author
  • March 5 – Robin Hobb (Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden, Megan Lindholm), American fantasy author
  • March 7 – William Boyd, Gold Coast-born Scottish novelist and screenwriter
  • March 11 – Douglas Adams, English science fiction author (died 2001)
  • March 13 – Ágnes Rapai, Hungarian poet, writer and translator
  • March 23 – Kim Stanley Robinson, American science fiction author
  • March 26 – T. A. Barron, American novelist
  • May 5 – Hafsat Abdulwaheed, Nigerian author and poet
  • May 31 – Carole Achache, French writer, photographer and actress (died 2016)
  • June 4 – Dambudzo Marechera, Zimbabwean writer (died 1987)
  • June 7 – Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist and Nobel laureate
  • June 20
  • Vince Gotera, American poet and critic
  • Vikram Seth, Indian novelist
  • June 29 – Breece D'J Pancake (Breece Dexter Pancake), American short story writer (suicide 1979)
  • July 3 – Rohinton Mistry, Indian-born Canadian novelist
  • July 6 – Hilary Mantel, English novelist (died 2022)
  • July 10 – Candice F. Ransom, American children's and young-adult author
  • July 18 – Per Petterson, Norwegian novelist
  • August 28 – Rita Dove, American poet
  • September 29 - Pete Hautman, American young-adult novelist
  • October 18 – Bảo Ninh, Vietnamese author
  • November 15 – Rick Atkinson, American journalist, historian and author
  • November 21 – Pedro Lemebel, Chilean novelist
  • December 19 – Sean O'Brien, English poet
  • December 22 – Mick Inkpen, English children's writer and illustrator
  • December 28 – Hemant Shesh, Indian Hindi writer

Deaths

  • January 22 – Roger Vitrac, French poet and dramatist (born 1899)
  • January 26 – Lodewijk van Deyssel, Dutch novelist (born 1864)
  • January 28 – Nicolae Constantin Batzaria, Ottoman-born Romanian humorist, novelist, editor, and journalist (spinal cancer, born 1874)
  • February 7 – Norman Douglas, Austrian-born Scottish novelist (born 1868)
  • February 13 – Josephine Tey (Elizabeth MacKintosh), Scottish crime novelist (born 1896)
  • February 19 – Knut Hamsun, Norwegian novelist and Nobel laureate (born 1859)
  • March 1
  • Mariano Azuela, Mexican novelist, dramatist and critic (born 1873)
  • Masao Kume (久米 正雄), Japanese playwright, novelist and haiku poet (born 1891)
  • March 27 – Ioan A. Bassarabescu, Romanian short story writer and politician (born 1870)
  • April 1 – Ferenc Molnár (Ferenc Neumann), Hungarian dramatist and novelist (born 1878)
  • April 30 – Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș – Romanian art historian, ethnographer and journalist (born 1872)
  • May 17 – Paul Bujor, Romanian politician, zoologist and short story writer (born 1862)
  • May 26 – Eugene Jolas, American/French writer, literary translator and critic (born 1894)
  • June 1 – John Dewey, American philosopher and psychologist (born 1859)
  • July 1 – A. S. W. Rosenbach, American book collector (born 1876)
  • July 8 – August Alle, Estonian writer (born 1890)
  • August 9 – Jeffery Farnol, English historical novelist (born 1878)
  • August 22 – H. J. Massingham, English countryside writer (born 1888)
  • September 26 – George Santayana, Spanish philosopher, poet and novelist writing in English (born 1863)
  • October 4 – Keith Murdoch, Australian journalist (born 1885)
  • October 6 – Teffi (Nadezhda Alexandrovna Buchinskaya), Russian humorist (born 1872)
  • November 3 – Louis Verneuil, French playwright (suicide, born 1893)
  • November 4 – Gilbert Frankau, English novelist (born 1884)
  • November 13 – Margaret Wise Brown, American children's author (embolism, born 1910)
  • November 16 – Charles Maurras, French poet and critic (born 1868)
  • November 18 – Paul Éluard, French surrealist poet (heart attack, born 1895)
  • November 23 – Aaro Hellaakoski, Finnish poet (born 1893)
  • December 6 – Cicely Hamilton, English dramatist and suffragist (born 1872)

Awards

  • Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Mary Norton, The Borrowers
  • Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Romano Guardini
  • Frost Medal: Carl Sandburg
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Evelyn Waugh, Men at Arms
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: G. M. Young, Stanley Baldwin
  • National Book Award: James Jones, From Here to Eternity.
  • Newbery Medal for children's literature: Eleanor Estes, Ginger Pye
  • Newdigate prize: Donald Hall
  • Nobel Prize for Literature: François Mauriac
  • Premio Nadal: María Medio Estrada, Nosotros, los Rivero
  • Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Joseph Kramm, The Shrike
  • Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Herman Wouk – The Caine Mutiny
  • Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Marianne Moore, Collected Poems
  • King's Gold Medal for Poetry: Andrew Young
  • National Book Award for Fiction: James Jones – From Here to Eternity

References

  • Popular Books of 1952 at Goodreads