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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1954.

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Events

  • January – Kingsley Amis's first novel, the comic campus novel Lucky Jim, is published by Victor Gollancz Ltd in London.
  • January 7 – The Georgetown–IBM experiment is the first public demonstration of a machine translation system, held in New York at the IBM head office.
  • January 25 – Dylan Thomas's radio play Under Milk Wood is first broadcast in the U.K. on the BBC Third Programme, two months after its author's death, with Richard Burton as "First Voice".
  • February – The London Magazine is revived as a literary magazine, with John Lehmann as editor.
  • March 31 – A. L. Zissu is sentenced in Bucharest to life imprisonment for "conspiring against the social order". This has been a focal point in the anti-Zionist clampdown in Communist Romania.
  • May 29 – The rediscovered and restored early 17th-century Corral de comedias de Almagro in Spain is re-inaugurated with a play by Calderon de la Barca.
  • June 16 – The first public celebration of "Bloomsday" takes place in Dublin: writers Flann O'Brien, Patrick Kavanagh and Anthony Cronin travel in a horse-drawn coach, stopping at numerous bars to retrace the steps of the characters from James Joyce's novel Ulysses.
  • June 22 – In the Parker–Hulme murder case, the 15-year-old Julia Hulme, a future writer of English historical detective fiction as Anne Perry, takes part in the murder of her best friend's mother in Christchurch, New Zealand.
  • July 29 – The first volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's epic The Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring – is published in London by George Allen & Unwin. The Two Towers follows on November 11 and publication will be completed in 1955. By 2007, 150 million copies will have been sold worldwide.
  • September 1 – Lawrence Quincy Mumford becomes the U.S. Librarian of Congress.
  • September 17 – William Golding's first novel, the allegorical dystopian Lord of the Flies, is published by Faber and Faber in London.
  • September 22 – Terence Rattigan's two linked plays Separate Tables are first performed, at St James's Theatre, London.
  • October 30 – John Updike's first story for The New Yorker, "Friends from Philadelphia", is published. He graduates from Harvard with a thesis on George Herbert, and begins a year's Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship to the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at England's University of Oxford.
  • November 19 – Brendan Behan's first play, The Quare Fellow is premièred at the Pike Theatre, Dublin.
  • unknown date – Jack Kerouac reads Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible (1932, found in San Jose library), which will influence him greatly.

New books

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Fiction

  • Kingsley Amis – Lucky Jim
  • Ahmed Sefrioui – La Boîte à merveilles
  • Anya Seton – Katherine
  • Margit Söderholm – Clouds Over Hellesta
  • John Steinbeck – Sweet Thursday
  • Irving Stone – Love Is Eternal
  • Rex Stout
  • The Black Mountain
  • Three Men Out
  • Edward Streeter – Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation
  • Julian Symons – The Narrowing Circle
  • Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar – Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü (The Time Regulation Institute)
  • Morton Thompson – Not as a Stranger
  • J. R. R. Tolkien
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
  • Amos Tutuola – My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
  • Tarjei Vesaas – Spring Night
  • Gore Vidal – Messiah
  • Douglass Wallop – The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant
  • Monique Watteau – La Colère végétale
  • Vaughan Wilkins – Fanfare for a Witch
  • Frank Yerby
  • Benton's Row
  • Bride of Liberty

Children and young people

  • Rev. W. Awdry – Edward the Blue Engine (ninth in The Railway Series of 42 books by him and his son Christopher Awdry)
  • Viola Bayley – Paris Adventure (first in the Adventure series of 16 books)
  • Lucy M. Boston – The Children of Green Knowe (first in the Green Knowe series of six books)
  • Eleanor Cameron – The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet
  • Meindert DeJong – The Wheel on the School (illustrated by Maurice Sendak)
  • Rumer Godden – Impunity Jane: The Story of a Pocket Doll
  • Joseph Krumgold – ...And Now Miguel
  • C. S. Lewis – The Horse and His Boy
  • Dr. Seuss – Horton Hears a Who!
  • Rosemary Sutcliff – The Eagle of the Ninth
  • Henry Treece
  • Legions of the Eagle
  • The Eagles Have Flown
  • Ronald Welch – Knight Crusader

Drama

<onlyinclude>

  • Tawfiq al-Hakim – El Aydi El Na'mah (Soft Hands)
  • Brendan Behan – The Quare Fellow
  • Dharamvir Bharati – Andha Yug (The Blind Age)
  • Agatha Christie - Spider’s Web
  • William Douglas Home – The Manor of Northstead
  • Peter Jones – The Party Spirit
  • Saunders Lewis – Siwan
  • Ronald Millar – Waiting for Gillian
  • Hugh Mills – The Little Glass Clock
  • Terence Rattigan – Separate Tables
  • Reginald Rose – Twelve Angry Men (original version as live teleplay)
  • Dylan Thomas – Under Milk Wood (radio play)
  • Thornton Wilder – The Matchmaker
  • Herman Wouk – The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial</onlyinclude>

Poetry

  • Tomas Tranströmer – 17 Poems (17 dikter)

Non-fiction

  • Gordon Allport – The Nature of Prejudice
  • L. Sprague de Camp – Lost Continents
  • Rodney Collin – The Theory of Celestial Influence
  • Albert Einstein – Ideas and Opinions
  • Gerald Gardner – Witchcraft Today
  • Aldous Huxley – The Doors of Perception
  • Arthur Koestler – The Invisible Writing: The Second Volume Of An Autobiography, 1932–40
  • D. R. Matthews – The Social Background of Political Decision-Makers
  • Mervyn Peake – Figures of Speech
  • Mihai Ralea – Caracterul antiștiințific și antiuman al psihologiei americane (The Anti-Science and Anti-Humanity Nature of American Psychology)
  • A. J. P. Taylor – The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848–1918
  • Alice B. Toklas – The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook
  • William Kurtz Wimsatt, Jr. – Verbal Icon: Studies in the Meaning of Poetry (collected essays including "The Intentional Fallacy" and "The Affective Fallacy", cowritten with Monroe Beardsley)
  • Barbara Woodhouse
  • Dog Training my Way
  • Talking to Animals (autobiography)

Births

  • January 5 – László Krasznahorkai, Hungarian novelist and screenwriter
  • January 15 – Jose Dalisay, Jr., Filipino writer
  • January 29 – Oprah Winfrey, American actress and talk show host
  • January – Cao Wenxuan (曹文軒), Chinese children's book writer and academic
  • February 2 – Moniza Alvi, Pakistani-British poet and writer
  • March 4 – Irina Ratushinskaya, Russian writer
  • May 6 – Nicholas Crane, English writer, geographer and broadcaster
  • March 16 – S. A. Griffin, American actor and poet
  • March 20
  • Christoph Ransmayr, Austrian writer
  • Louis Sachar, American children's author
  • April 14 – Bruce Sterling, American science-fiction writer
  • May 5 – Hamid Ismailov, Uzbek writer
  • May 23 – Anja Snellman, Finnish writer
  • June 6 – Cynthia Rylant, American children's author and poet
  • June 28 – A. A. Gill, British journalist and critic (died 2016)
  • July 17 – J. Michael Straczynski, American author
  • July 26 - Michael Grant, American young-adult fiction writer
  • August 1 – James Gleick, American non-fiction author
  • August 15 – Mary Jo Salter, American poet and academic
  • August 17 – Anatoly Kudryavitsky, Russian-Irish writer
  • September 14 – Mikey Smith, Jamaican dub poet (killed 1983)
  • November 8 – Kazuo Ishiguro, Japanese-born English novelist and Nobel laureate
  • November 10 – Marlene van Niekerk, South African novelist
  • November 11 – Mary Gaitskill, American novelist, essayist and short story writer
  • November 12 – Christopher Pike (Kevin Christopher McFadden), American children's author
  • December 2 – Ibrahim Nasrallah, Jordanian/Palestinian poet and novelist
  • December 3 – Grace Andreacchi, American author
  • December 7 – Mark Hofmann, American rare book dealer, forger and murderer
  • December 20 – Sandra Cisneros, American writer
  • unknown dates
  • Esther Delisle, French Canadian author and historian
  • Roma Tearne (Roma Chrysostom), Sri Lankan novelist and artist

Deaths

  • January 1 – Duff Cooper (1st Viscount Norwich), English poet, biographer and politician (born 1890)
  • January 21 – E. K. Chambers, English literary scholar (born 1866)
  • January 25 – M. N. Roy, Indian philosopher and politician (born 1887)
  • February 2 – Hella Wuolijoki, Estonian-born Finnish writer (born 1886)
  • February 6 – Maxwell Bodenheim, American poet and novelist (born 1892; murdered)
  • March 28 – Francis Brett Young, English novelist and poet (born 1884)
  • April 8
  • Juan Álvarez, Argentinian historian (born 1878)
  • Winnifred Eaton, Canadian author (born 1875)
  • Cicely Fox Smith, English poet and nautical writer (born 1882)
  • April 19 – Russell Davenport, American journalist and publisher (born 1899)
  • May 3 – Earnest Hooton, American writer on anthropology (born 1887)
  • June 18 – Constantin Beldie, Romanian literary promoter and memoirist (born 1887)
  • July 13 – Grantland Rice, American sportswriter (born 1880)
  • July 14 – Jacinto Benavente, Spanish dramatist and Nobel laureate (born 1866)
  • August 2 – Julián Padrón, Venezuelan novelist, journalist and lawyer (born 1910)
  • August 3 – Colette, French novelist (born 1873)
  • September 19 – Miles Franklin, Australian novelist (born 1879)
  • September 29 – W. J. Gruffydd, Welsh-language journal editor (born 1881)
  • October 22 – Oswald de Andrade, Brazilian poet and polemicist (born 1890)
  • November 17 – Ludovic Dauș, Romanian novelist and dramatist (born 1873)
  • December 6 – Lucien Tesnière, French grammarian (born 1893)
  • December 20 – James Hilton, English novelist (born 1900)

Awards

  • Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Ronald Welch, Knight Crusader
  • Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Carl Jacob Burckhardt
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize:
  • Fiction: C. P. Snow, The New Men and The Masters
  • Biography: Keith Feiling, Warren Hastings
  • Newbery Medal for children's literature: Joseph Krumgold, ...And Now Miguel
  • Nobel Prize for Literature: Ernest Miller Hemingway
  • Premio Nadal: Francisco Alcántara, La muerte sienta bien a Villalobos
  • Prix Goncourt: Simone de Beauvoir, Les mandarins
  • Pulitzer Prize:
  • Drama: John Patrick, The Teahouse of the August Moon
  • Fiction: no award given
  • Poetry: Theodore Roethke: TheWaking
  • Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Ralph Hodgson
  • Hugo Award:
  • Best Novella: James Blish, A Case of Conscience

References

  • Popular Books of 1954 at Goodreads