1957 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1957.

Events

 * January 10 – T. S. Eliot marries his secretary Valerie Fletcher, 30 years his junior, in a private church ceremony in London. His first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood, died in 1947.
 * January 15 – The film Throne of Blood, a reworking of Macbeth by Akira Kurosawa (黒澤明), is released in Japan.
 * March – The Cat in the Hat, written and illustrated by Theodor Geisel as 'Dr. Seuss' as a more entertaining alternative to traditional literacy primers for children, is first published in a trade edition in the United States, initially selling an average of 12,000 copies a month, a figure which rises rapidly.
 * March 13 – A 1950 Japanese translation of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover by Sei Itō (伊藤整) is found on appeal to be obscene.
 * March 15 – Élet és Irodalom (Life and Literature) is first published in Hungary as a literary magazine.
 * March 21 – C. S. Lewis marries Joy Gresham in a Christian ceremony at her bedside in the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, England.
 * March 25 – Copies of Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems (first published 1 November 1956) printed in England are seized by United States Customs Service officials in San Francisco on grounds of obscenity. On October 3, in People v. Ferlinghetti, a subsequent prosecution of publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti in the city, the work is ruled not to be obscene.
 * April – John Updike moves to Ipswich, Massachusetts, the model for the fictional New England town of Tarbox in his 1968 novel Couples.
 * June 2 – Joe Orton submits The Last Days of Sodom, a novel jointly written with Kenneth Halliwell, to a publisher; it is rejected within three days and they give up working in partnership.
 * July 1 – The opening performance is held at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival's Festival Theatre in Stratford, Ontario, with its thrust stage designed by Tanya Moiseiwitsch.
 * July 19 – The largely autobiographical novel The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold by Evelyn Waugh is published.
 * August 7 – Italo Calvino's letter of resignation from the Italian Communist Party appears in l'Unità.
 * October – The first American Beat Generation (poets Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky) stay at the "Beat Hotel" (Hotel Rachou) in Paris.
 * November 22 – Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago is first published, in Italian translation, by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli in Milan, having been rejected for publication in the Soviet Union.
 * unknown dates
 * Justine, the first novel in Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet, is published. The last will be published in 1960.
 * Dorothy Parker begins writing book reviews for Esquire.
 * E. E. Cummings gains a special citation from the National Book Award Committee in the United States for his Poems, 1923–1954.
 * Malcolm Muggeridge is replaced by Bernard Hollowood as editor of the British Punch magazine.
 * The Harry Ransom Center for research in the humanities is founded in the University of Texas at Austin by Harry Ransom.
 * John Sandoe opens a bookshop in Chelsea, London.
 * Noh is inscribed as an Intangible Cultural Property (Japan).
 * Three neo-Grotesque sans-serif typefaces are released: Folio (designed by Konrad Bauer and Walter Baum), Neue Haas Grotesk (Max Miedinger) and Univers (Adrian Frutiger), will influence the International Typographic Style of graphic design.

Fiction

 * Caridad Bravo Adams – Corazón salvaje
 * James Agee – A Death in the Family
 * Lars Ahlin – Natt i marknadstältet (Night in the Market Tent)
 * Isaac Asimov
 * Earth Is Room Enough
 * The Naked Sun
 * John Bingham – Murder Off the Record
 * Ray Bradbury – Dandelion Wine
 * John Braine – Room at the Top
 * Fredric Brown – Rogue in Space
 * Pearl S. Buck – Letter from Peking
 * Michel Butor – La Modification
 * John Dickson Carr – Fire, Burn!
 * Louis-Ferdinand Céline – Castle to Castle (D'un château l'autre)
 * John Cheever – The Wapshot Chronicle
 * Agatha Christie – 4.50 from Paddington
 * Mark Clifton and Frank Riley – They'd Rather Be Right
 * Ivy Compton-Burnett – A Father and His Fate
 * Thomas B. Costain – Below the Salt
 * James Gould Cozzens – By Love Possessed
 * L. Sprague de Camp – Solomon's Stone
 * Freeman Wills Crofts – Anything to Declare?
 * Cecil Day-Lewis – End of Chapter
 * Daphne du Maurier – The Scapegoat
 * Lawrence Durrell – Justine
 * Shusaku Endo (遠藤 周作) – The Sea and Poison (海と毒薬)
 * Ian Fleming
 * The Diamond Smugglers
 * From Russia, with Love
 * Janet Frame – Owls Do Cry
 * Sarah Gainham
 * The Cold Dark Night
 * The Mythmaker
 * Jean Giono – The Straw Man (Le Bonheur fou)
 * José Giovanni – The Break (Le Trou)
 * Martyn Goff – The Plaster Fabric
 * Richard Gordon – Doctor in Love
 * Winston Graham – Greek Fire
 * L.P. Hartley – The Hireling
 * Bill Hopkins – The Divine and the Decay
 * Aldous Huxley – Collected Short Stories
 * James Jones – Some Came Running
 * Anna Kavan – Eagle's Nest
 * Jack Kerouac – On the Road
 * Frances Parkinson Keyes – Blue Camellia
 * Christopher Landon – Ice Cold in Alex
 * Halldór Laxness – The Fish Can Sing (Brekkukotsannáll)
 * Chin Yang Lee – The Flower Drum Song
 * Meyer Levin – Compulsion
 * H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth – The Survivor and Others
 * Compton Mackenzie – Rockets Galore
 * Józef Mackiewicz – Kontra
 * Alistair MacLean
 * The Guns of Navarone
 * South by Java Head
 * Naguib Mahfouz – Sugar Street
 * Bernard Malamud – The Assistant
 * Richard Mason – The World of Suzie Wong
 * James A. Michener – Rascals in Paradise
 * Gladys Mitchell – The Twenty-Third Man
 * Nancy Mitford – Voltaire in Love
 * C. L. Moore – Doomsday Morning
 * Elsa Morante – L'isola di Arturo
 * Sławomir Mrożek – Słoń (The Elephant, short stories)
 * Iris Murdoch – The Sandcastle
 * Vladimir Nabokov – Pnin
 * Björn Nyberg and L. Sprague de Camp – The Return of Conan
 * Marcel Pagnol – Le Château de ma mère
 * Boris Pasternak – Doctor Zhivago
 * Anthony Powell – At Lady Molly's
 * Maurice Procter – The Midnight Plumber
 * Qu Bo (曲波) – Tracks in the Snowy Forest (林海雪原)
 * Ayn Rand – Atlas Shrugged
 * Robert Randall (pseudonym of Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett) – The Shrouded Planet
 * Alain Robbe-Grillet – La Jalousie
 * Nevil Shute – On the Beach
 * Robert Paul Smith – Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing
 * Muriel Spark – The Comforters
 * Howard Spring – Time and the Hour
 * John Steinbeck – The Short Reign of Pippin IV
 * Rex Stout
 * Three for the Chair
 * If Death Ever Slept
 * Julian Symons – The Colour of Murder
 * Elizabeth Taylor – Angel
 * Kay Thompson – Eloise in Paris
 * Roger Vailland – La Loi
 * Jack Vance – Big Planet
 * Arved Viirlaid – Seitse kohtupäeva (Seven Days of Trial)
 * Henry Wade – The Litmore Snatch
 * Evelyn Waugh – The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold
 * Patrick White – Voss
 * Angus Wilson – A Bit Off the Map
 * John Wyndham – The Midwich Cuckoos
 * Ivan Yefremov – Andromeda Nebula
 * Frank Yerby – Fairoaks

Children and young people

 * Mabel Esther Allan – Ballet for Drina
 * Gillian Avery – The Warden's Niece
 * Rev. W. Awdry – The Eight Famous Engines (twelfth in The Railway Series of 42 books by him and his son Christopher Awdry)
 * Narain Dixit – Khar Khar Mahadev (serialized)
 * Aileen Fisher – A Lantern in the Window
 * Edward Gorey – The Doubtful Guest
 * Éva Janikovszky – Csip-csup (Piffling)
 * Tove Jansson – Moominland Midwinter (Trollvinter)
 * Harold Keith – Rifles for Watie
 * Elinor Lyon – Daughters of Aradale
 * William Mayne – A Grass Rope
 * Otfried Preußler – Die kleine Hexe (The Little Witch)
 * Dr. Seuss
 * The Cat in the Hat
 * How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
 * Pat Smythe – Jacqueline Rides for a Fall (first of the Three Jays series of seven books)
 * Elizabeth George Speare – Calico Captive
 * Tomi Ungerer – The Mellops Go Flying
 * Dare Wright – The Lonely Doll

Drama

 * Samuel Beckett – Endgame and Act Without Words I (first performed); All That Fall and From an Abandoned Work (first broadcast of both)
 * Emilio Carballido – El censo
 * William Douglas Home – The Iron Duchess
 * Christopher Fry – The Dark is Light Enough
 * Jean Genet – The Balcony (Le Balcon)
 * Günter Grass – Flood (Hochwasser)
 * Graham Greene – The Potting Shed
 * William Inge – The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
 * Errol John – Moon on a Rainbow Shawl
 * Bernard Kops – The Hamlet of Stepney Green
 * John Osborne
 * The Entertainer
 * Epitaph for George Dillon
 * Harold Pinter – The Dumb Waiter (written)
 * N. F. Simpson – A Resounding Tinkle
 * Wole Soyinka – The Invention
 * Boris Vian – Les Bâtisseurs d'Empire (The Empire Builders)
 * Tennessee Williams
 * Baby Doll
 * Orpheus Descending

Poetry

 * Robert E. Howard – Always Comes Evening
 * Ted Hughes – The Hawk in the Rain
 * Pier Paolo Pasolini – Le ceneri di Gramsci
 * Octavio Paz – Piedra de Sol
 * Jibanananda Das – Rupasi Bangla
 * Robert Penn Warren – Promises: Poems, 1954–1956. Won National Book Award for Poetry  – Won 1958 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

Non-fiction

 * Abdelmajid Benjelloun – Fī l-Ṭufūla
 * B. R. Ambedkar (died 1956) – The Buddha and His Dhamma
 * G. E. M. Anscombe – Intention
 * Catherine Drinker Bowen – The Lion and the Throne: The Life and Times of Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634). Wins 1958 National Book Award for Nonfiction
 * Gerald Brenan – South from Granada: Seven Years in an Andalusian Village
 * M. Đilas – The New Class
 * Will Durant – The Reformation. Nominated for National Book Award for Nonfiction
 * Elisabeth Elliot – Through Gates of Splendor
 * Charles Evans – Kangchenjunga: The Untrodden Peak
 * Douglas Southall Freeman – George Washington: A Biography. Wins 1958 Pulitzer Prize for Biography; nominated for National Book Award for Nonfiction
 * Northrop Frye – Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays
 * Patience Gray and Primrose Boyd – Plats du jour, illustrated by David Gentleman
 * Louis M. Hacker – Alexander Hamilton in the American. Nominated for National Book Award for Nonfiction
 * Bray Hammond – Banks and Politics in America. Won 1958 Pulitzer Prize for History
 * Gilbert Highet – Poets in a Landscape. Nominated for 1958 National Book Award for Nonfiction
 * Richard Hoggart – The Uses of Literacy
 * Eric John Holmyard – Alchemy
 * Stuart Holroyd – Emergence from Chaos
 * Ernst Kantorowicz – The King's Two Bodies
 * Henry Kissinger – Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. Nominated for National Book Award for Nonfiction
 * Primo Levi – If This Is a Man (Se Questo è un Uomo)
 * Art Linkletter – Kids Say the Darndest Things
 * Christopher Lloyd – The Mixed Border
 * Mary McCarthy – Memories of a Catholic Girlhood. Nominated for National Book Award for Nonfiction
 * Tom Maschler (ed.) – Declaration (anthology)
 * Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley – The Untouchables
 * Iris Origo – The Merchant of Prato (life and commercial career of Francesco di Marco Datini)
 * Walt Whitman Rostow & Max F. Milliken – A Proposal: Key to an Effective Foreign Policy. Nominated for National Book Award for Nonfiction
 * Jean-Paul Sartre – Search for a Method (Questions de méthode)
 * David Schoenbrun – As France Goes. Nominated for National Book Award for Nonfiction
 * Rodolfo Walsh – Operación Masacre
 * Ian Watt – The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding
 * Alan Watts – The Way of Zen
 * K. A. Wittfogel – Oriental Despotism

Births

 * January 7 – Nicholson Baker, American novelist
 * January 16 – Stella Tillyard, English writer and historian
 * January 22 – Francis Wheen, English journalist and author
 * January 27 – Frank Miller, American comic-book cartoonist and scriptwriter
 * February 11 – Mitchell Symons, English writer and journalist
 * February 15 – Shahriar Mandanipour, Iranian writer
 * March 3 – Nicholas Shakespeare, English novelist and biographer
 * March 7 – Robert Harris, English novelist and current-affairs writer
 * March 20 – John Grogan, American journalist and non-fiction writer
 * March 23 – Ananda Devi, Mauritian francophone fiction writer and poet
 * March 26 – Paul Morley, English music journalist
 * March 29 – Elizabeth Hand, American science fiction and fantasy writer
 * April 3
 * Rainer Karlsch, German historian
 * Unni Lindell, Norwegian novelist
 * May 13 – Koji Suzuki, Japanese author and screenwriter
 * May 17 – Peter Høeg, Danish novelist
 * May 23 – Craig Brown, English satirist
 * June 8 – Scott Adams, American satirist
 * July 12 – Pino Quartullo, Italian actor, director, screenwriter and playwright
 * July 14 – Andrew Nicholls, English-born Canadian screenwriter
 * July 29 – Liam Davison, Australian novelist (died 2014 in air crash)
 * August 24 – Stephen Fry, English comedy performer, broadcast presenter and writer
 * August 25 – Simon McBurney, British actor, writer and theatre director
 * September 11 - James McBride, American writer and musician
 * September 22 – Nick Cave, Australian author and musician
 * October 9 – Herman Brusselmans, Belgian novelist, poet, playwright and columnist
 * October 28 - Catherine Fisher, British poet and children's writer
 * December 3 – Anne B. Ragde, Norwegian novelist
 * December 11 – William Joyce, American children's author
 * December 12 – Robert Lepage, Canadian playwright
 * unknown dates
 * Peter Armstrong, English poet and psychotherapist
 * John Doyle, Irish-born Canadian critic
 * Ana Santos Aramburo, Spanish national librarian
 * Melanie Rae Thon, American author

Deaths

 * January 10 – Gabriela Mistral, Chilean poet (born 1889)
 * January 13 – A. E. Coppard, English short story writer and poet (born 1878)
 * January 19 – Barbu Lăzăreanu, Romanian literary historian, poet, and communist journalist (heart attack, born 1881)
 * February 10 – Laura Ingalls Wilder, American author (born 1867)
 * March 7 – Wyndham Lewis, British novelist (born 1882)
 * March 9 – Rhoda Power, English children's writer and broadcaster (born 1890)
 * March 12 – John Middleton Murry, English critic (born 1889)
 * March 28 – Christopher Morley, American journalist, novelist and poet (born 1890)
 * March 29 – Joyce Cary, Irish novelist (born 1888)
 * April 22 – Roy Campbell, South African poet and satirist (born 1901)
 * June 17
 * May Edginton, English popular novelist (born 1883)
 * Dorothy Richardson, English novelist and journalist (born 1873)
 * June 26
 * Alfred Döblin, German novelist (born 1878)
 * Malcolm Lowry, English novelist and poet (born 1909)
 * July 10
 * Sholem Asch, Polish-Jewish novelist, dramatist and essayist (born 1880)
 * Julia Boynton Green, American author and poet (born 1861)
 * July 19 – Curzio Malaparte, Italian novelist, playwright, and journalist (cancer, born 1898)
 * July 21 – Kenneth Roberts, American historical novelist (born 1885)
 * July 23 – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Italian novelist (born 1896)
 * July 24 – Sacha Guitry, Russian-born French playwright, actor and director (b. 1885)
 * August 1 – Rose Fyleman, English writer and poet (born 1877)
 * August 21 – Mait Metsanurk, Estonian writer (born 1879)
 * August 25 – Leo Perutz, Austrian-born novelist and mathematician (born 1882)
 * September 2 – William Craigie, Scottish lexicographer (born 1867)
 * September 12 – José Lins do Rego, Brazilian novelist (born 1901)
 * September 22 – Oliver St. John Gogarty, Irish poet and memoirist (born 1878)
 * October 25 – Edward Plunkett, Baron Dunsany, Irish author (born 1878)
 * October 26 – Nikos Kazantzakis, Greek novelist (born 1883)
 * November 8 – Ernest Elmore (John Bude), English crime writer and theatre director (born 1901)
 * November 24 – Alfred Eckhard Zimmern, English historian and political scientist (born 1879)
 * December 15 – Mulshankar Mulani, Gujarati playwright (born 1867)
 * December 17 – Dorothy L. Sayers, English crime novelist (born 1893)
 * December 24 – Arturo Barea, Spanish journalist, broadcaster and writer (born 1897)
 * December 25 – Stanley Vestal, American writer, poet and historian (born 1877)

Awards

 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: William Mayne, A Grass Rope
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Anthony Powell, At Lady Molly's
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Maurice Cranston, Life of John Locke
 * Miles Franklin Award: Patrick White, Voss
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Virginia Sorenson, Miracles on Maple Hill
 * Nobel Prize for Literature: Albert Camus
 * Premio Nadal: Carmen Martín Gaite, Entre visillos
 * Prix Goncourt: Roger Vailland, La Loi
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night
 * Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: no award given
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Wilbur: Things of This World
 * Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Siegfried Sassoon