# 1952 in literature

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

## Events

* February – The historical periodical Past & Present is launched in Oxford, U.K.
* 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 – Het behouden huis (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 – Ristideta hauad (Graves Without Crosses)
* Kurt Vonnegut – Player Piano
* Henry Wade – Be Kind to the Killer
* Evelyn Waugh – Men at Arms
* Hillary Waugh – Last Seen Wearing...
* Vaughan Wilkins – A King Reluctant
* Antonia White – The Sugar House
* 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

* Rodney Ackland – The Pink Room
* Jean Anouilh
** The Lark (L'Alouette)
** The Waltz of the Toreadors (La Valse des toréadors)
* Jacinto Benavente – Ha llegado Don Juan
* 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
* Arthur Watkyn – The Moonraker

### Poetry

* Paul Celan – Poppy and Memory (German: Mohn und Gedächtnis)
* 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
* 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
* 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