1972 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1972.

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In poetry 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975
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Events

• May 22 – Cecil Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, dies at Lemmons, the home of novelists Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard in North London, which he has shared with his wife and son – actors Jill Balcon and Daniel Day-Lewis – and at weekends with Kingsley's writer son Martin Amis and others.^[1]
• June 4 – The poet Joseph Brodsky is expelled from the Soviet Union.^[2]
• October – In Somalia, the government of President Siad Barre formally introduces the Somali Latin alphabet as the country's official writing script.^[3][4]
• October 6–7 – The new Staatstheater Darmstadt is opened.
• October 8 – The play Sizwe Bansi is Dead has its first performance at the Space Theatre (Cape Town), South Africa, before a multiracial audience. Playwright Athol Fugard directs, with co-writers John Kani and Winston Ntshona in lead roles.
• October 10 – Sir John Betjeman is declared Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, the first knight ever to be so.^[5]
• "The three Marias", Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta and Maria Velho da Costa, publish in Lisbon New Portuguese Letters (Novas Cartas Portuguesas), a collection challenging the Estado Novo dictatorship, to immediate success,^[6] but banned by censors as "pornographic and an offense to public morals".^{[7][8][9][10]} Its authors are imprisoned for "abuse of freedom of the press" and "outrage to public decency".^[11][12][8] Only after the 1974 "Carnation Revolution" does their trial end with the authors pardoned and the judge assigning "outstanding literary merit" to the book.^[12]

New books

Fiction

• Dritëro Agolli – The Rise and Fall of Comrade Zylo (Shkëlqimi dhe Rënja e Shokut Zylo, published in the magazine Hosteni)
• Srikrishna Alanahalli – Kaadu
• Jorge Amado – Teresa Batista Cansada da Guerra (Tereza Batista: Home from the Wars)^[13]
• Eric Ambler – The Levanter
• Martin Amis – The Rachel Papers
• Isaac Asimov – The Gods Themselves
• John Braine – The Queen of a Distant Country^[14]
• Gerald Butler – There Is a Death, Elizabeth
• Taylor Caldwell – Captains and the Kings
• Italo Calvino – Invisible Cities (Le città invisibili)^[15]
• John Dickson Carr – The Hungry Goblin: A Victorian Detective Novel
• Angela Carter – The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman
• Agatha Christie – Elephants Can Remember
• Brian Cleeve – Tread Softly in this Place
• Michael Crichton – The Terminal Man
• Robertson Davies – The Manticore
• L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp, editors – 3000 Years of Fantasy and Science Fiction
• R. F. Delderfield – To Serve Them All My Days
• Margaret Drabble, B. S. Johnson and others – London Consequences
• Frederick Forsyth – The Odessa File
• Brian Garfield – Death Wish
• Günter Grass – Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke (From the Diary of a Snail)
• Graham Greene – The Honorary Consul
• Peter Handke – A Sorrow Beyond Dreams (Wunschloses Unglück)
• James Herriot – All Creatures Great and Small
• Georgette Heyer – Lady of Quality
• George V. Higgins – The Friends of Eddie Coyle^[16]
• Witi Ihimaera – Pounamu Pounamu (short story collection)
• P. D. James – An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
• Dan Jenkins – Semi-Tough^[17]
• Thomas Keneally – The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
• Carl Jacobi – Disclosures in Scarlet
• Derek Lambert
  • Blackstone
  • The Red House
• Halldór Laxness – Guðsgjafaþula (Mantra of God's Gift)
• Ira Levin – The Stepford Wives
• Audrey Erskine Lindop – Journey Into Stone
• Frank Belknap Long – The Rim of the Unknown
• Peter Lovesey – Abracadaver
• Robert Ludlum – The Osterman Weekend
• David McCullough – The Great Bridge^[18]
• John D. MacDonald – The Scarlet Ruse
• Ngaio Marsh – Tied Up in Tinsel
• Barry N. Malzberg – Beyond Apollo
• David Morrell – First Blood
• Vladimir Nabokov – Transparent Things
• Kenzaburō Ōe (大江 健三郎) – The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away (みずから我が涙をぬぐいたまう日, Mizukara Waga Namida o Nugui Tamau Hi)
• Chaim Potok – My Name Is Asher Lev
• Josef Škvorecký – The Miracle Game (Mirákl)
• David Storey – Pasmore
• Arkady and Boris Strugatsky – Roadside Picnic («Пикник на обочине», Piknik na obochine)
• Paul Theroux – Saint Jack
• Hunter S. Thompson – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
• Irving Wallace – The Word

Children and young people

• Chinua Achebe – How the Leopard Got His Claws^[19]
• Richard Adams – Watership Down^[20]
• Lloyd Alexander – The Four Donkeys
• E. M. Almedingen – Anna^[21]
• Rev. W. Awdry – Tramway Engines (twenty-sixth in The Railway Series of 42 books by him and his son Christopher Awdry)
• Betty Baker
  • The Big Push (illustrated by Bonnie Johnson)
  • A Stranger and Afraid
• Judy Blume – Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great
• Michael Bond – Paddington's Garden (tenth in the Paddington Bear series)
• Ray Bradbury (illustrated by Joe Mugnaini) – The Halloween Tree
• Betsy Byars – The House of Wings
• Ellen Conford – Why Can't I Be William?
• Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator^[22]
• Rumer Godden
  • The Diddakoi (also Gypsy Girl)
  • The Old Woman Who Lived in a Vinegar Bottle^[23]
• Marguerite Henry (illustrated by Robert Lougheed) – San Domingo, the Medicine Hat Stallion
• Russell Hoban (illustrated by Abrom Hoban) – The Sea-thing Child
• Robert E. Howard (with Alicia Austin) – Echoes from an Iron Harp
• Tove Jansson – The Summer Book^[24]
• Alexander Key – The Strange White Doves
• Michael de Larrabeiti – The Redwater Raid
• Arnold Lobel – Frog and Toad Together (second in the Frog and Toad series of four books)
• Ronald McCuaig – Gangles
• James Marshall – George and Martha (first in a series of seven eponymous books)^[25]
• Helen Nicoll (illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski) – Meg and Mog (first in series)
• Graham Oakley – The Church Mouse (first in the Church Mice series of twelve books)
• Bill Peet
  • The Ant and the Elephant
  • Countdown to Christmas
• John Peterson (illustrated by Roberta Carter Clark) – The Littles Give a Party (fifth in The Littles series)
• Ellen Raskin – Franklin Stein
• Mary Renault – The Persian Boy
• Barbara Robinson – The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
• Joan G. Robinson (illustrated by Shirley Hughes) – The House in the Square
• Thomas Rockwell (illustrated by Gail Rockwell) – Squawwwk!
• Mary Rodgers – Freaky Friday
• Dr. Seuss – Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!
• Marjorie W. Sharmat – Nate the Great
• Margery Sharp – Miss Bianca and the Bridesmaid (seventh in The Rescuers series of nine books)
• Alfred Slote – The Biggest Victory
• Robert Kimmel Smith – Chocolate Fever
• Eve Titus – Why the Wind God Wept
• P. L. Travers – Friend Monkey
• Judith Viorst – Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day^[26]

Drama

• Alan Ayckbourn – Absurd Person Singular^[27]
• Samuel Beckett – Not I
• Bill Bryden – Willie Rough
• Caryl Churchill – Owners
• Hanay Geiogamah – Body Indian
• Eugène Ionesco – Macbett
• Vijay Tendulkar
  • Ghashiram Kotwal
  • Sakharam Binder

Non-fiction

• The American Museum of Natural History – An Introduction
• Jacob Bronowski – The Ascent of Man
• L. Sprague de Camp
  • Great Cities of the Ancient World
  • with Catherine Crook de Camp – Darwin and His Great Discovery'
• Carlos Castaneda – Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan
• Winston Graham – The Spanish Armadas
• Bruce Joyce and Marsha Weil – Models of Teaching (first edition)
• Michael Kammen – People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization
• Richard Mabey – Food for Free
• Elaine Morgan – The Descent of Woman^[28]
• Robert Newton Peck – A Day No Pigs Would Die
• Frances Yates – The Rosicrucian Enlightenment
• John Howard Yoder – The Politics of Jesus

Births

• January 1 – Maile Meloy, American novelist and short story writer
• February 11 – Noboru Yamaguchi (山口 登), Japanese light novelist and game scenario author (died 2013)^[29]
• March 29 - Ernest Cline, American science-fiction novelist and screenwriter
• May 22 – Max Brooks, American horror author and screenwriter^[30]
• May 27 – Maggie O'Farrell, Northern Ireland-born novelist
• July 21 – Josué Guébo, Ivorian writer and academic
• August 6 - Paolo Bacigalupi, American science-fiction and fantasy writer
• August 18 – Adda Djørup, Danish poet and fiction writer
• August 26 - Paula Hawkins, British novelist and journalist
• September 6 – China Miéville, English science fiction novelist^[31]
• September 19
  • Cheryl B (Cheryl Burke), American poet and spoken word artist
  • N. K. Jemisin, American science fiction and fantasy writer
• November 4 – Yiyun Li (李翊雲), Chinese American writer of fiction in English
• November 26 - James Dashner, American writer of speculative fiction
• December 20 – Gen Urobuchi, Japanese novelist and screenwriter
• unknown dates
  • Zinnie Harris, British dramatist^[32]
  • Rabee Jaber, Lebanese novelist^[33]
  • Charlotte Mendelson, English novelist
  • Marente de Moor, Dutch novelist and columnist
  • Ben Rice, English novelist
  • Fran Wilde, American science fiction novelist

Deaths

• January 1 – Eberhard Wolfgang Möller, German playwright and poet (born 1906)
• January 7 – John Berryman, American poet (suicide; born 1914)^[34]
• January 8 – Kenneth Patchen, American poet and author (born 1911)^[35]
• January 17 – Betty Smith, American novelist (born 1896)^[36]
• February 2 – Natalie Clifford Barney, American writer and patron (born 1876)^[37]
• February 15 – Edgar Snow, American political writer (cancer, born 1905)^[38]
• March 4 – Richard Church, English poet and novelist (born 1893^[39]
• March 9 – Violet Trefusis, English writer (born 1894)^[40]
• March 11 – Fredric Brown, American genre novelist (born 1906
• March 14 – Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Italian publisher (born 1926)
• April 10 – Laurence Manning, Canadian science fiction author (born 1899)
• April 16 – Yasunari Kawabata (川端 康成), Japanese fiction writer, Nobel laureate (born 1899)
• May 22 – Cecil Day-Lewis, Irish-born Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and (as Nicholas Blake) novelist (born 1904)^[41]
• May 28 – Violette Leduc, French novelist and memoirist (born 1907)^[42]
• June 24 – R. F. Delderfield, English novelist and playwright (born 1912)^[43]
• August 2 – Helen Hoyt (Helen Lyman), American poet (born 1887)
• August 9 – Ernst von Salomon, German writer (born 1902)
• August 17 – Alexander Vampilov, Russian dramatist (drowned fishing, born 1937)
• August 22 – Ernestine Hill, Australian travel writer (born 1899)
• September 21 – Henry de Montherlant, French novelist, dramatist and essayist (suicide, born 1895)
• September 27 – S. R. Ranganathan, Indian mathematician and librarian (born 1892)
• October 5 – Ivan Yefremov, Soviet paleontologist and science fiction author (born 1908)^[44]
• November 1 – Ezra Pound, American poet (born 1885)^[45]
• November 12 – José Nucete Sardi, Venezuelan historian and diplomat (born 1897)^[46]
• November 29 – Victor Bridges (Victor George de Freyne), English genre novelist, playwright and poet (born 1878)
• December 10 – Mark Van Doren, American poet, writer and critic (born 1894)
• December 13 – L. P. Hartley, English novelist (born 1895)^[47]
• December 23 – Abraham Joshua Heschel, Polish-born American theologian and rabbi (born 1907)
• unknown dates
  • Wasif Jawhariyyeh, Palestinian Arab diarist, poet and composer (born 1897)^[48]
  • Donar Munteanu, Romanian poet and magistrate (born 1886)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Heinrich Böll

Canada

• See 1972 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Jean Carrière, L'Epervier de Maheux
• Prix Médicis French: Maurice Clavel, Le Tiers des étoiles

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: John Berger, G.
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Richard Adams, Watership Down^[49]
• Cholmondeley Award: Molly Holden, Tom Raworth, Patricia Whittaker
• Eric Gregory Award: Tony Curtis, Richard Berengarten, Brian Oxley, Andrew Greig, Robin Lee, Paul Muldoon^[50]
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: John Berger, G
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Quentin Bell, Virginia Woolf

United States

• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for the novel, Eudora Welty
• Hugo Award: Philip José Farmer, To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971)
• National Book Award: Flannery O'Connor, The Complete Stories
• Nebula Award: Isaac Asimov, The Gods Themselves
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Robert C. O'Brien, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH^[51]
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Not awarded
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Wallace Stegner – Angle of Repose
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: James Wright, Collected Poems

Elsewhere

• Miles Franklin Award: Thea Astley, The Acolyte
• Premio Nadal: José María Carrascal, Groovy^[52]
• Viareggio Prize: Romano Bilenchi, Il bottone di Stalingrado

Notes

• Hahn, Daniel (2015). The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (2nd ed.). Oxford. University Press. ISBN 9780198715542.

References

1. Kelbie, Paul; Davies, Caroline (2008-08-31). "Auden, Kerr, Day-Lewis". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2015-09-30.
2. Obituary pp. 4–6 The New York Times "Joseph Brodsky, Exiled Poet Who Won Nobel, Dies at 55" January 29, 1996.
3. Economist Intelligence Unit (Great Britain) (1975). Middle East Annual Review. p. 229.
4. Abdullahi, Mohamed Diriye (2001). Culture and Customs of Somalia. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 73. ISBN 978-0-313-31333-2.
5. "From the archive, 11 October 1972: Betjeman won't let Poet Laureate role change him". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2012-12-05.
6. Kauffman, Linda S. (1988). "8. Poetics, Passion and Politics in The Three Marias: New Portuguese Letters". Discourses of Desire: Gender, Genre, and Epistolary Fictions. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. pp. 279–311. ISBN 9780801495106. Retrieved 2019-07-18.
7. Patrick, Oona; Ellis, Dean; Fernandes, Jose (translator) (2014-04-15). "Maria Teresa Horta: The Third Maria". Guernica. Retrieved 2019-07-18.
8. Kramer, Jane (1975-02-02). "The Three Marias". The New York Times. Retrieved 2019-07-18.
9. "The Case of The Three Marias". Time. Vol. 102, no. 4. US. 1973-07-23. p. 52. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2019-06-30.
10. "Three Women Charged With Pornography". Democrat and Chronicle. Rochester, NY. 1973-10-26. p. C1. Retrieved 2019-07-18.
11. Hamilton-Faria, Hope (December 1975). "Reviewed Works". The Modern Language Journal. 59 (8). Wiley for National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations: 451–452. doi:10.2307/325498. JSTOR 325498.
12. Mitchell, Juliet (1975-10-05). "Passion's prisoners". The Sunday Times. No. 7947. London. p. 39.
13. Jorge Amado (1972). Obras de Jorge Amado: Tereza Batista, cansada de guerra. Martins.
14. James Vinson; D. L. Kirkpatrick (1979). Novelists and Prose Writers. Macmillan. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-333-25292-5.
15. Italo Calvino (1972). Le città invisibili. Einaudi.
16. Joe McGuinniss (February 6, 1972). "Real Cops and Robbers". New York Times. Retrieved March 14, 2021.
17. Emmis Communications (November 1984). Texas Monthly. Emmis Communications. p. 234.
18. Google Books. Retrieved 2015-02-22.
19. Hahn 2015, p. 2-3
20. Hahn 2015, p. 3
21. Hahn 2015, pp. 20-21
22. Hahn 2015, p. 118
23. Books, University of Chicago Center for Children's (1973). The Best in Children's Books: The University of Chicago Guide to Children's Literature, 1966-1972. University of Chicago Press. p. 149. ISBN 978-0-226-78057-3.
24. "Review: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson". the Guardian. 12 July 2003. Retrieved 18 January 2022.
25. Hahn 2015, p. 377
26. Hahn 2015, p. 14
27. Michael Holt (17 August 2018). Alan Ayckbourn. Oxford University Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-7463-1281-0.
28. Elaine Morgan (1 February 2001). Descent of Woman: The Classic Study of Evolution. Souvenir Press. ISBN 978-0-285-63984-3.
29. "Noboru Yamaguchi (novelist)". Anime News Network. Retrieved March 14, 2021.
30. Shelley, Peter (2017). Anne Bancroft: The Life and Work. McFarland & Company. p. 102. ISBN 978-1476662428.
31. Science-fiction Studies. SFS Publications. p. 355.
32. Brown, Mark (2018). Modernism and Scottish Theatre since 1969: A Revolution on Stage. Springer. p. 130.
33. Banipal: Magazine of Modern Arab Literature. Margaret Obank. 2006. p. 138-9.
34. Literary Research Newsletter. Literary Research Newsletter Association. 1982. p. 86.
35. Paul Varner (21 June 2012). Historical Dictionary of the Beat Movement. Scarecrow Press. p. 240. ISBN 978-0-8108-7397-1.
36. Dictionary of North Carolina Biography: Vol. 5, P–S edited by William S. Powell. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979, p. 372.
37. Katharina M. Wilson; M. Wilson (1991). An Encyclopedia of Continental Women Writers. Taylor & Francis. p. 82. ISBN 978-0-8240-8547-6.
38. William J. Miller (1988). The People's Republic of China's United Front Tactics in the United States, 1972-1988. C. Schlacks, Jr. p. 9.
39. "Richard (Thomas) Church". Author and Book Info. Retrieved 2014-06-15.
40. The Antigonish Review. 1990. p. 40.
41. Wystan Hugh Auden (1988). The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: 1969-1973. 2015. Princeton University Press. p. 765. ISBN 978-0-691-16458-8.
42. Hughes, Alex (1994). Violette Leduc: Mothers, Lovers, and Language. MHRA. ISBN 9780901286413.
43. Sanford Sternlicht (1988). R.F. Delderfield. Twayne Publishers. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-8057-6967-8.
44. Christy G. Turner II; Nicolai D. Ovodov; Olga V. Pavlova (11 July 2013). Animal Teeth and Human Tools: A Taphonomic Odyssey in Ice Age Siberia. Cambridge University Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-1-107-06765-3.
45. Peter Ackroyd (1980). Ezra Pound and His World. Scribner. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-684-16798-5.
46. Mireya Sosa de LEÓN: «Nucete Sardi, José». En: Diccionario de Historia de Venezuela. Venezuela: Fundación Empresas Polar, 1997. 980-6397-37-I.
47. Edward T. Jones; Edward Trostle Jones (1978). L. P. Hartley. Twayne Publishers. p. 14-15. ISBN 978-0-8057-6703-2.
48. Salim Tamari; Issam Nassar (1 October 2013). The Storyteller of Jerusalem: The Life and Times of Wasif Jawhariyyeh, 1904-1948. Interlink Publishing. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-62371-039-2.
49. Hahn 2015, p. 660
50. Society of Authors: Eric Gregory past winners^[usurped]. Retrieved 2015-02-22.
51. Hahn 2015, p.357
52. "Libros". Casa del Libro. Retrieved 2015-09-30.