1957 in literature

The year 1957 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

 * Lawrence Durrell publishes the first volume of The Alexandria Quartet. The final of the four volumes will be published in 1960.
 * Dorothy Parker begins writing book reviews for Esquire.
 * E. E. Cummings receives a special citation from the National Book Award Committee for his Poems, 1923-1954.
 * Italo Calvino resigns from the Communist Party. His famous letter of resignation is published in L'Unità.
 * John Updike moves to Ipswich, Massachusetts, the model for the fictional New England town of Tarbox in his novel, Couples.
 * The Last Days of Sodom, a novel jointly written by Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, is rejected. As a result they give up working in partnership.
 * Malcolm Muggeridge is replaced by Bernard Hollowood as editor of Punch magazine.
 * Copies of Howl are seized by customs officials. Later in the year, the publishers are acquitted of obscenity charges stemming from the incident.

New books

 * Caridad Bravo Adams - Corazón salvaje
 * Isaac Asimov
 * Earth is Room Enough
 * The Naked Sun
 * 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!
 * John Cheever - The Wapshot Chronicle
 * Agatha Christie - 4.50 from Paddington
 * Mark Clifton & Frank Riley - They'd Rather Be Right
 * Thomas B. Costain - Below the Salt
 * James Gould Cozzens - By Love Possessed
 * L. Sprague de Camp - Solomon's Stone
 * Daphne du Maurier - The Scapegoat
 * Lawrence Durrell - Justine
 * Ian Fleming
 * The Diamond Smugglers
 * From Russia with Love
 * 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
 * Meyer Levin - Compulsion
 * H. P. Lovecraft & August Derleth - The Survivor and Others
 * 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
 * Nancy Mitford - Voltaire in Love
 * C. L. Moore - Doomsday Morning
 * Elsa Morante - L'isola di Arturo
 * 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
 * Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
 * Robert Randall (pseudonym of Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett) - The Shrouded Planet
 * Dr. Seuss - The Cat in the Hat, ''How the Grinch Stole Christmas
 * Nevil Shute - On the Beach
 * Robert Paul Smith - Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing
 * Muriel Spark - The Comforters
 * John Steinbeck - The Short Reign of Pippin IV
 * Rex Stout
 * Three for the Chair
 * If Death Ever Slept
 * Kay Thompson - Eloise in Paris
 * Roger Vailland - La Loi
 * Jack Vance - Big Planet
 * 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

New drama

 * Samuel Beckett - Endgame and Act Without Words I (first performed); All That Fall and From an Abandoned Work (first broadcast of both)
 * Christopher Fry - The Dark is Light Enough
 * Jean Genet - The Balcony
 * Graham Greene - The Potting Shed
 * William Inge - The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
 * Heiner Müller - The Correction
 * John Osborne - The Entertainer and Epitaph for George Dillon
 * Harold Pinter - The Dumb Waiter (written)
 * N. F. Simpson - The Resounding Tinkle
 * Tennessee Williams - Baby Doll and Orpheus Descending

Poetry

 * Robert E. Howard - Always Comes Evening

Non-fiction

 * Elisabeth Elliot — Through Gates of Splendor
 * Northrop Frye — Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays
 * Richard Hoggart — The Uses of Literacy
 * Eric John Holmyard - Alchemy
 * Primo Levi — If This Is a Man (Se Questo è un Uomo)
 * Art Linkletter — Kids Say the Darndest Things
 * Mary McCarthy — Memories of a Catholic Girlhood
 * Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley — The Untouchables
 * Jean-Paul Sartre — Existentialism and Human Emotions
 * Rodolfo Walsh — Operación Masacre

Births

 * March 26 - Paul Morley, music journalist
 * May 17 - Peter Høeg, novelist
 * May 23 - Craig Brown, satirist
 * June 8 - Scott Adams, satirist
 * August 24 - Stephen Fry, actor, comedian, television presenter and novelist
 * September 22 - Nick Cave, musician and author
 * December 11 - William Joyce, children's author
 * date unknown
 * John Doyle, critic
 * Rainer Karlsch, historian
 * Mitchell Symons, journalist
 * Melanie Rae Thon, author
 * William S. Field, patent researcher

Deaths

 * January 10 - Gabriela Mistral, poet (b. 1889)
 * February 10 - Laura Ingalls Wilder, author
 * March 12 - John Middleton Murry, critic
 * March 28 - Christopher Morley, journalist, novelist and poet
 * March 29 - Joyce Cary, author
 * April 22 - Roy Campbell, poet
 * June 17 - Dorothy Richardson, novelist
 * June 27 - Malcolm Lowry, author
 * July 21 - Kenneth Roberts, novelist
 * July 23 - Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, novelist (b. 1896)
 * September 2 - William Craigie, lexicographer
 * December 17 - Dorothy L. Sayers, crime novelist

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
 * 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