Literature year 1939

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Overview of the literature years
Further events

Literature year 1939
Agatha Christie publishes Ten Little Niggers , the best-selling detective novel to date .	The Finn Frans Eemil Sillanpää is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature .
The writer Jura Soyfer dies of typhus in Buchenwald concentration camp .

Events

prose

United States

• March 18 : The American writer James Thurber published in the magazine The New Yorker one of his most famous short stories, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty ( Walter Mittys secret life ).
• April 14 : In the United States appears John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath ( Grapes of Wrath ), he in the Great Depression , the Dust Bowl of the Midwest and the fate of the so-called " Okies addressed" in California. The author is subsequently confronted with hostility from the ranks of the political right and large landowners, including bans and book burnings , but the novel is awarded the Pulitzer Prize the following year .
• August 18 : The novel Uncle Fred in the Springtime ( Uncle's Awakening ) by PG Wodehouse is first published in the USA . The protagonist of the work from the Blandings Castle saga is Lord Ickenham .
• The short story The Statement of Randolph Carter by HP Lovecraft is published for the first time in book form.

Great Britain and Ireland

• Agatha Christie publishes the crime novels Murder is Easy (June 5th) and Ten Little Niggers (November 6th). The latter was later published under the title And Then There Were None and is still the best-selling detective novel and one of the most successful books of all time.

• The postmodern novel At Swim-two-birds ( At Swim-Two-Birds ) of the Irish Flann O'Brien appears.
• Finnegans Wake , the last novel by James Joyce , on which he worked since 1923 , appears.
• The British writer Christopher Isherwood publishes the autobiographical novel Goodbye to Berlin .

France

• Antoine de Saint-Exupéry writes the experience report Terre des Hommes ( wind, sand and stars ).
• The novel Le Bourgmestre de Furnes is published by Georges Simenon .

Further plants worldwide

• Shalom Asch writes his novel Jesus. A Nazarene .
• The novel Põrgupõhja uus Vanapagan by the Estonian writer Anton Hansen Tammsaare appears.
• The 1938 novel Karge meri by the Estonian writer August Gailit appears as The Island of the Seal Hunters in German.

Poetry

• June 15 : Bertolt Brecht's poem To the Born is published in the exile magazine Die neue Weltbühne, published in Paris . The work, which was written in Danish exile in Svendborg on Funen, and is therefore part of the Svendborg poetry cycle , is considered to be one of the most important texts in German exile literature .

TS Eliot (1934)

• TS Eliot publishes the poetry collection Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats , which decades later becomes the basis for the Musical Cats .

drama

• Before he leaves Denmark on April 23, Bertolt Brecht completed the drama Mother Courage and Her Children .
• Joseph Kesselring wrote the comedy Arsenic and Old Lace ( Arsenic and Old Lace ), which is his only successful play.

biography

• Abraham Lincoln: The War Years is published by Carl Sandburg .

Comic

• In the US, the first appears Batman - comic .

Children's literature

• The Nazi propaganda work Mother, tell about Adolf Hitler! by Johanna Haarer appears.

Scientific works

• February 11th : Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch describe theoretical considerations after the discovery of nuclear fission in the science journal Nature and thus cause a sensation in the professional world.
• The Twenty Years' Crisis by EH Carr is released in London .

Founding of publishing houses

• Arkham House is founded in the USA as a publishing house for fantastic literature.

Awards ceremonies

Sillanpää receives the news that the Nobel Prize has been awarded.

• The Finn Frans Eemil Sillanpää received the Nobel Prize for Literature “for the deep understanding and the exquisite art of style with which he depicts the peasant life and the nature of his homeland in their mutual context” .

Born

January to April

• 0January 5th : Luisa Futoransky , Argentine poet and writer
• 0January 7th : Michael of Greece , Prince of Greece and author
• January 12 : Helmut Eisendle , Austrian psychologist and writer († 2003 )
• January 15 : Hartmut Geerken , German musician, composer, writer, publicist, radio play author and filmmaker
• January 23 : Fred Wah , Canadian poet, writer and former college professor
• January 25 : Rosemarie Eitzert , German author of children's books
• January 29 : Germaine Greer , Australian intellectual, writer and publicist

• 0February 1st : Fritjof Capra , Austrian physicist, esotericist and book author
• February 10 : Adrienne Clarkson , Hong Kong-born Canadian journalist, writer, and diplomat
• February 18 : Federico Moleiro , Venezuelan poet
• February 28 : Erika Pluhar , Austrian actress, singer and author

• 0March 3 : Ariane Mnouchkine , French theater and film director, theater director and author
• March 14th : Yves Boisset , French director and screenwriter
• March 30th : Christine Wolter , German writer

• 0April 3 : Henning Venske , German actor, cabaret artist, presenter and writer
• April 10 : Claudio Magris , Italian writer and translator
• April 12 : Alan Ayckbourn , British playwright
• April 13 : Seamus Heaney , Irish writer and Nobel Prize winner († 2013 )
• April 20 : Peter S. Beagle , American novelist and songwriter
• April 20 : Wayson Choy , Canadian writer († 2019 )
• April 20 : Katherine V. Forrest , Canadian writer
• April 21 : Richard Goedeke , German mountaineer, climber and author
• April 22 : Jason Anthony Miller , American actor and playwright († 2001 )
• April 28 : Burkhard Driest , German writer and actor († 2020 )
• April 30th : Trautl Brandstaller , Austrian journalist, writer and television editor

May to August

• 0May 1st : Johano Strasser , German political scientist, publicist and writer
• 0May 3 : Dennis O'Neil , American novelist and comic book author († 2020 )
• 0May 4 : Amos Oz , Israeli writer († 2018 )
• 0May 7th : Volker Braun , German writer
• 0May 7 : WD Valgardson , Canadian writer
• 0May 9 : Pierre Desproges , French humorist, author and television cabaret artist († 1988 )
• May 10 : Uwe Wandrey , German writer
• May 18 : Hark Bohm , German actor, director and screenwriter
• May 18 : Romualdas Granauskas , Lithuanian writer († 2014 )
• May 18 : Sigrun Casper , German writer
• May 28 : Maeve Binchy , Irish writer and columnist († 2012 )

• 0June 9 : Charles Webb , American writer († 2020 )
• June 12 : Obaidullah Aleem , Urdu-speaking poet († 1998 )
• June 14th : Dankwart Guratzsch , German journalist
• June 14 : Peter Mayle , British writer († 2018 )
• June 15 : Brian Jacques , British writer († 2011 )
• June 17th : Hanna Johansen , Swiss writer
• June 18 : Jack Herer , American writer († 2010 )
• June 23 : Álvaro Pombo , Spanish writer
• June 24 : Samad Behrangi , Persian writer, teacher, journalist and civil rights activist († 1967 )

• 0July 2 : Michael Anthony Foster , American science fiction writer
• 0July 4th : Roland Klick , German director and screenwriter
• 0July 5th : Ulrike von Möllendorff , German journalist and television presenter
• 0July 9 : Günter Tolar , Austrian actor, TV presenter and author
• July 20 : Judy Chicago , American artist and writer
• July 28 : Beat Brechbühl , Swiss writer

• 0August 1 : Robert James Waller , American writer († 2017 )
• 0August 2 : Wes Craven , American director and screenwriter († 2015 )
• 0August 9 : Lee Cheong-jun , South Korean author († 2008 )
• August 17 : Ed Sanders , American beatnik poet, singer, activist, writer, and editor
• August 24 : Yehoshua Sobol , Israeli playwright and writer
• August 27 : Hans Heinrich Formann , Austrian writer († 2016 )

September to December

• 0September 3 : Vivi Bach , Danish singer, actress, TV presenter and writer († 2013)
• September 16 : Breyten Breytenbach , South African-French writer, anti-apartheid activist and painter
• September 16 : Wolfram Schütte , German journalist, author, film critic and editor
• September 26 : Charlotte Grasnick , German author
• September 26 : George McWhirter , Canadian writer, translator, and professor of Northern Irish descent

• 0October 5 : Marie-Claire Blais , Canadian writer
• October 12 : Vladimír Körner , Czech screenwriter, dramaturge and writer
• October 16 : Gerold Späth , Swiss writer
• October 21 : Peter Plichta , German chemist and author
• October 26 : Karel Schoeman , Afrikaans-speaking South African writer († 2017)
• October 27 : John Cleese , British comedian, actor and screenwriter

• 0November 6th : Satoko Kizaki , Japanese writer
• 0November 7th : Lene Mayer-Skumanz , Austrian author
• 0November 9th : Marco Bellocchio , Italian director and screenwriter
• November 13 : George V. Higgins , American (crime) writer († 1999)
• November 18 : Margaret Atwood , Canadian writer
• November 18 : Amanda Lear , singer, painter, presenter, writer and actress

• 0December 4th : Günther Stingl , Austrian writer
• December 10th : Peter Schütt , German writer, politician and journalist
• December 18 : Friedrich Tenkrat , Austrian writer
• December 25th : Tununa Mercado , Argentine writer and journalist

Exact date of birth unknown

• Jörg Nimmergut , German author
• Yak Rivais , French artist and writer

Died

• January 23 : Ernst Blass , German writer (* 1890 )

Gravestone of WB Yeats in Drumcliff

• January 28 : William Butler Yeats , Irish writer and Nobel Prize winner (* 1865 )

• February 16 : Jura Soyfer , Austrian writer (* 1912 )
• February 18 : Okamoto Kanoko , Japanese writer (* 1889 )
• February 18 : Jakub Lorenc-Zalěski , Sorbian writer and publicist (* 1874 )
• February 21 : Edlef Köppen , German writer and radio editor (* 1893 )
• February 22nd : Antonio Machado , Spanish lyric poet (* 1875 )

• March 30th : Ludwig Fulda , German Germanist, philosopher and author (* 1862 )
• April 1 : Anton Semjonowitsch Makarenko , Soviet educator and writer (* 1888 )

• May 6 : Ragnar Jändel , Swedish writer and poet (* 1895 )
• May 22nd : Ernst Toller , German politician, revolutionary and writer (* 1893 )
• May 23 : Margarete Böhme , German writer (* 1867 )

The grave of Joseph Roth in the Thiais cemetery near Paris

• May 27 : Joseph Roth , Austrian writer and journalist (* 1894 )

• June 9 : Akashi Kaijin , Japanese poet (* 1901 )
• June 26 : Ford Madox Ford , British writer (* 1873 )

• July 7th : Fritz Skowronnek , German journalist and writer (* 1858 )
• July 27 : Hartley Burr Alexander , American philosopher, writer and ethnologist (* 1873 )

• August 28 : Bruno Tanzmann , German writer and publisher (* 1878 )
• August 30 : Wilhelm Bölsche , German writer and naturalist (* 1861 )

• September 7th : Izumi Kyōka , Japanese writer (* 1873 )
• September 13 : Olav Duun , Norwegian writer (* 1876 )
• September 21 : Georg Witkowski , German literary historian (* 1863 )

• October 23 : Zane Gray , American writer (* 1872 )
• November 18 : Martha Müller-Grählert , Low German writer (* 1876 )

• December 1 : Nataly von Eschstruth , German writer (* 1860 )
• December 31 : Sara Louisa Blomfield , Anglo-Irish Baha'i and author (* 1859 )

Web links

Commons : Books 1939  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Commons : Magazine 1939  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Commons : Newspapers 1939  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files