1943 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1943.

Events

• January 4 – Thomas Mann completes writing Joseph der Ernährer in California, last of the tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers (Joseph und seine Brüder) on which he began work in December 1926.
• February 4 – Première of Bertolt Brecht's The Good Person of Szechwan (Der gute Mensch von Sezuan) at the Schauspielhaus Zürich in Switzerland with Leonard Steckel directing.^[1]
• March – Publication in New York of exiled French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's self-illustrated children's novella The Little Prince, the all-time best-selling book originated in French.
• May – A strongly antisemitic production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice is staged at the Burgtheater in Vienna with Werner Krauss as Shylock.
• September – George Orwell resigns from the BBC to become literary editor of Tribune.
• September 9 – Première of Bertolt Brecht's Life of Galileo (Leben des Galilei, 1939) at the Schauspielhaus Zürich in Switzerland with Leonard Steckel directing and playing the title rôle.
• December
  • Philip Larkin, having graduated from the University of Oxford, obtains his first post as a librarian (at Wellington, Shropshire).
  • Philip Van Doren Stern sends copies of his story The Greatest Gift to friends as a Christmas card.
• December 22 – Death of children's writer and illustrator Beatrix Potter. She bequeaths over 4,000 acres (16 km²) of land in the English Lake District to the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty.
• Isaac Bashevis Singer becomes a naturalized citizen of the United States.
• Publication of a new comprehensive edition of Friedrich Hölderlin's complete works (Sämtliche Werke, the "Große Stuttgarter Ausgabe"), begins.
• Jack Kerouac transfers from the Merchant Marine to the United States Navy where he serves eight days of active duty and is honorably discharged on psychiatric grounds. In New York City, he, William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg become friends.
• Tristan Bernard is released from the Drancy internment camp.
• The Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States places Richard Wright under surveillance.

New books

Fiction

• Sabahattin Ali – Madonna in a Fur Coat (Kürk Mantolu Madonna)
• Sholem Asch – The Apostle
• Marcel Aymé – The Passer through Walls (Le Passe-muraille)
• Nigel Balchin – The Small Back Room
• Vaikom Muhammad Basheer – Premalekhanam
• Henry Bellamann – Victoria Grandolet
• Georges Bernanos – Monsieur Ouine
• Marjorie Bowen – Airing in a Closed Carriage
• Ivan Bunin – Dark Avenues («Тёмные аллеи», Tyomnyye allei, short stories, first edition)
• John Dickson Carr (as Carter Dickson) – She Died A Lady
• Raymond Chandler – The Lady in the Lake
• Colette – Le Képi
• Simone de Beauvoir – She Came to Stay (L'Invitée)
• Pierre Drieu La Rochelle – The Man on Horseback (L'Homme à cheval)
• Howard Fast – Citizen Tom Paine
• Carlo Emilio Gadda – Gli anni
• Jean Genet (anonymously) – Our Lady of the Flowers (Notre Dame des Fleurs)
• Robert Graves – Claudius the God
• Elizabeth Janet Gray – Adam of the Road
• Graham Greene – The Ministry of Fear
• Hermann Hesse – The Glass Bead Game (Das Glasperlenspiel)
• Aleksander Kamiński (as Juliusz Górecki) – Kamienie na szaniec (Stones for the Rampart)
• C. S. Lewis – Perelandra
• Clarice Lispector – Near to the Wild Heart (Perto do coração selvagem)
• H. P. Lovecraft – Beyond the Wall of Sleep
• Naguib Mahfouz – Rhadopis of Nubia
• Bruce Marshall – Yellow Tapers for Paris
• C. L. Moore – Earth's Last Citadel
• Robert Musil (posthumously) – The Man Without Qualities (Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, publication concludes, uncompleted)
• Kate O'Brien – The Last of Summer
• E. Phillips Oppenheim – Mr. Mirakel
• Roger Peyrefitte – Les Amitiés particulières
• Ellery Queen – There Was an Old Woman
• Ayn Rand – The Fountainhead
• Betty Smith – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
• Antal Szerb – The Queen's Necklace (A királyné nyaklánca)
• Phoebe Atwood Taylor
  • Going, Going, Gone
  • Proof of the Pudding
  • File for Record (as Alice Tilton)
• Kylie Tennant – Ride on Stranger
• H. G. Wells – Crux Ansata
• Dorothy Whipple – They Were Sisters
• Chancellor Williams – The Raven
• Virginia Woolf (posthumously) – A Haunted House and Other Short Stories

Children and young people

• Enid Blyton
  • The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage
  • The Magic Faraway Tree
• Virginia Lee Burton – The Little House
• Eleanor Estes – Rufus M.
• Roald Dahl – The Gremlins
• Esther Forbes – Johnny Tremaine
• C. S. Forester – The Ship
• Mary Norton – The Magic Bed Knob; or, How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons
• Arthur Ransome – The Picts and the Martyrs
• Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince)
• Malcolm Saville – Mystery at Witch End (first in the Lone Pine series of twenty books)
• Laura Ingalls Wilder – These Happy Golden Years

Drama

• Bertolt Brecht
  • The Good Person of Szechwan (Der gute Mensch von Sezuan)
  • Life of Galileo (Leben des Galilei)
• Albert Camus – The Misunderstanding (Le Malentendu)
• Moss Hart – Winged Victory
• Fritz Hochwälder – Das Heilige Experiment (The Holy Experiment, The Strong Are Lonely)
• Elena Miramova – Dark Eyes
• M. J. Molloy – Old Road
• Armijn Pane – Kami, Perempuan (We, the Women)
• Terence Rattigan - While the Sun Shines
• Nelson Rodrigues – Vestido de Noiva (The Wedding Dress)
• Jean-Paul Sartre – The Flies (Les Mouches)
• Yang Jiang – As You Desire (Chenxin ruyi)

Poetry

• A Choice of Kipling's Verse edited by T. S. Eliot

Non-fiction

• Georges Bataille – L'expérience intérieure
• Julius Evola – The Doctrine of Awakening (La dottrina del risveglio)
• Louis Hjelmslev – Prolegomena to a Theory of Language (Omkring sprogteoriens grundlæggelse)
• C. S. Lewis – The Abolition of Man
• Reinhold Niebuhr – The Nature and Destiny of Man
• Martin Noth – Uberlieferungsgeschischtliche Studien: Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament
• Jean-Paul Sartre – Being and Nothingness (L'Être et le néant: Essai d'ontologie phénoménologique)
• Edna Walling – Gardens in Australia
• William Foote Whyte – Street Corner Society
• Stephan Zweig (posthumously) – The World of Yesterday (first English edition)

Births

• January 4 – Doris Kearns Goodwin, American writer
• January 8 – Charles Murray, American political science writer (The Bell Curve)
• January 11 – Jim Hightower, American radio host and author
• January 13 – Lorna Sage, English scholar and biographer (died 2001)
• January 16 – Graham Lord, Rhodesian-born English literary biographer and novelist (died 2015)
• February 15 – Elke Heidenreich, German journalist and writer
• February 18 – Graeme Garden, Scottish-born writer, comedian and actor
• February 22 – Terry Eagleton, English scholar and publicist
• March 26 – Bob Woodward, American journalist
• April 6 – Max Clifford, English publicist
• April 17 – Gwynne Dyer, Canadian journalist
• April 30 – Paul Jennings, English-born Australian children's author
• May 5 – Michael Palin, English comedy writer and television broadcaster
• May 7 – Peter Carey, Australian novelist
• May 8 – Pat Barker, English novelist
• June 7 – Michael Pennington, English writer, actor and director
• June 10 – Simon Jenkins, English journalist
• June 15 – Xaviera Hollander, Dutch East Indies-born writer
• July 16 – Reinaldo Arenas, Cuban writer (died 1990)
• August 2 – Rose Tremain (Rosemary Thomson), English novelist
• September 24 – Antonio Tabucchi, Italian writer, academic and translator
• October 5 – Michael Morpurgo, English children's writer
• October 9 – L. E. Modesitt, Jr., American fantasy and science fiction writer
• November 5 – Sam Shepard, American playwright, writer and actor
• November 6 – Berlie Doherty (Berlie Hollingworth), English children's and young-adults' writer
• November 12 – Wallace Shawn, American actor and dramatist
• December 9 – Joanna Trollope, English novelist
• Unknown dates
  • Vicki Feaver, English poet and academic
  • Ebrahim Hussein, Tanzanian playwright in Swahili
  • Sheila Rowbotham, English feminist author

Deaths

• January 3 – F. M. Cornford, English classicist and poet (born 1874)
• January 9 – R. G. Collingwood, English philosopher and historian (born 1889)
• March 10 – Laurence Binyon, English poet and scholar (born 1869)
• March 13 – Stephen Vincent Benét, American author (born 1898)
• April 7 – Jovan Dučić, Herzegovina Serb poet and diplomat (born 1871)
• April 29 – Sidney Keyes, English poet (killed in action, born 1922)
• April 30 – Beatrice Webb, English sociologist, economist and social reformer (born 1858)
• May 27 – Arthur Mee, English encyclopedist and writer (born 1875)
• June 17 – Annie Shepherd Swan (David Lyall), Scottish novelist and journalist (born 1859)
• June 28 – Frida Uhl, Austrian writer and translator (born 1872)
• c. August 8 – Haig Acterian (Mihail), Romanian poet, dramatist and journalist (missing in action, born 1904)
• August 12 – Kurt Eggers, Nazi German writer, poet, songwriter and playwright (killed in action, born 1905)
• August 22 – Virgilio Dávila, Puerto Rican poet and politician (born 1869)
• August 24 – Simone Weil, French philosopher (born 1909)
• October 7 – Radclyffe Hall, English novelist and poet (born 1880)^[2]
• November 30 – Etty Hillesum, Dutch correspondent, diarist, and Holocaust victim (born 1914)
• December 2
  • Drummond Allison, English poet (killed in action, born 1921)
  • Nordahl Grieg, Norwegian poet and author (born 1902)
• December 22 – Beatrix Potter, English children's writer and illustrator (born 1866)
• Unknown dates
  • Ida Lee, Australian historian and poet (born 1865)
  • Guido Mazzoni, Italian poet (born 1859)

Awards

• Frost Medal: Edna St. Vincent Millay
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Mary Lavin, Tales from Bective Bridge
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: G. G. Coulton, Fourscore Years
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Elizabeth Janet Gray, Adam of the Road
• Nobel Prize for literature: not awarded
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Thornton Wilder, The Skin of Our Teeth
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Frost: A Witness Tree
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Upton Sinclair – Dragon's Teeth

In literature

• January 1 – Karel Čapek's science fiction novel The Absolute at Large (Továrna na absolutno, 1922) opens on this day.
• June 31 (sic.) – Len Deighton's novel Bomber (1970) is set on this day.

References