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The year 1959 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• April 30 - Theatrical première of Bertolt Brecht's Saint Joan of the Stockyards, originally performed on radio in 1932.
• Aldous Huxley turns down the offer of a knighthood.
• First appearance of Astérix the Gaul.
• Colin Dexter begins teaching at Corby Grammar School.
• Frank Herbert begins researching Dune.
• Frederik Pohl becomes editor of Galaxy magazine.
• Marcel Achard is elected to the Académie française.
• D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover (1928) legally circulates in the U.S. after a 31 year obscenity ban. (See Grove Press, Inc. v. Christenberry)

New books

• Isaac Asimov - Nine Tomorrows
• Saul Bellow - Henderson the Rain King
• Robert Bloch - Psycho
• Ray Bradbury - A Medicine for Melancholy
• John Brunner
  • Echo in the Skull
  • The World Swappers
• Algis Budrys - The Falling Torch
• William S. Burroughs - Naked Lunch
• Taylor Caldwell - Dear and Glorious Physician
• John Dickson Carr - Scandal at High Chimneys: A Victorian Melodrama
• Agatha Christie - Cat Among the Pigeons
• Ivy Compton-Burnett - A Heritage and Its History
• Richard Condon - The Manchurian Candidate
• Alexander Cordell - Rape of the Fair Country
• Julio Cortázar - Las armas secretas (short stories)
• Richard Crichton - The Great Impostor
• Allen Drury - Advise and Consent
• Alfred Duggan - Children of the Wolf
• Gerald Durrell - My Family and Other Animals
• Lawrence Durrell - Mountolive
• Ian Fleming - Goldfinger
• Paul Gallico - Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris
• William Golding - Free Fall
• Günter Grass - The Tin Drum
• Robert A. Heinlein
  • The Menace From Earth
  • Starship Troopers
  • The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag
• Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House
• John Knowles - A Separate Peace
• William J. Lederer and Eugene L. Burdick - The Ugly American
• H. P. Lovecraft and Divers Hands - The Shuttered Room and Other Pieces
• John Lymington - Night of the Big Heat
• Colin MacInnes - Absolute Beginners
• Alistair MacLean - Night Without End
• Naguib Mahfouz - The Children of Gebelaawi
• Norman Mailer - Advertisement for Myself
• James A. Michener - Hawaii
• Mervyn Peake - Titus Alone
• Robert Randall (pseudonym of Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett) - The Dawning Light
• Mordecai Richler - The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
• Philip Roth - Goodbye, Columbus
• Robert Ruark - Poor No More
• Nathalie Sarraute - Le Planétarium
• Alan Sillitoe - The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
• Terry Southern - The Magic Christian
• Rex Stout - Plot It Yourself
• John Updike - The Same Door
• Leon Uris - Exodus
• Kurt Vonnegut - The Sirens of Titan
• Sheila Watson - The Double Hook

New drama

• Edward Albee - The Death of Bessie Smith (written)
• Jean Anouilh - Becket
• John Arden - Serjeant Musgrave's Dance
• Samuel Beckett - Embers (first broadcast)
• Bertolt Brecht - Saint Joan of the Stockyards (first performed)
• Albert Camus - The Possessed
• Jean Genet - The Blacks (first performed)
• Lorraine Hansberry - A Raisin in the Sun
• Eugène Ionesco - The Killer
• Judith Malina - The Connection
• Harold Pinter - The Caretaker (first published)
• Jean-Paul Sartre - The Condemned of Altona
• N. F. Simpson - One Way Pendulum
• Arnold Wesker - Roots and The Kitchen
• Tennessee Williams - Sweet Bird of Youth

Non-fiction

• Kenneth Anger - Hollywood Babylon
• Thomas B. Costain - The Three Edwards (Third book in the Plantagenet or Pageant of England series)
• L. Sprague de Camp - Engines
• August Derleth
  • Arkham House: The First 20 Years
  • Some Notes on H. P. Lovecraft
• Savitri Devi - Impeachment of Man
• C. S. Forester - Sink the Bismarck! aka The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck
• Erving Goffman - The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
• Miguel León-Portilla - Visión de los vencidos: Relaciones indígenas de la conquista
• Garrett Mattingly - The Defeat of the Spanish Armada
• Karl Popper - The Logic of Scientific Discovery
• Cornelius Ryan - The Longest Day
• William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White - The Elements of Style

Births

• March 15 - Ben Okri, poet and novelist
• March 18 - Frédéric-Yves Jeannet, novelist and critic
• May 3 - Ben Elton, British comedian and author
• August 27 - Jeanette Winterson, novelist
• October 31 - Neal Stephenson - science fiction writer
• date unknown
  • Paul Anderson, journalist
  • Maurice Georges Dantec, science fiction author
  • R. A. Salvatore, science fiction and fantasy author

Deaths

• January 3 - Edwin Muir, poet, novelist and translator
• January 29 - Pauline Smith, novelist
• February 22 - Percy F. Westerman, children's author
• February 23 - Luis Palés Matos, poet
• February 28 - Maxwell Anderson, playwright, film writer
• March 26 - Raymond Chandler, American novelist
• April 14 - Julien Josephson, screenwriter
• May 18 - Apsley Cherry-Garrard, explorer and memoirist
• June 23 - Boris Vian, French novelist
• June 30 - José Vasconcelos, political writer
• September 18 - Benjamin Péret, poet
• date unknown
  • Olga Knipper, widow of Anton Chekhov and star of many of his plays
  • Alfred Schütz, philosopher and sociologist

Awards

• Hugo Award for Best Novel: James Blish, A Case of Conscience
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Morris West, The Devil's Advocate
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Christopher Hassall, Edward Marsh
• Miles Franklin Award: Vance Palmer, The Big Fellow
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Elizabeth George Speare, The Witch of Blackbird Pond
• Nobel Prize for literature: Salvatore Quasimodo
• Premio Nadal: Ana María Matute, Primera memoria
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Archibald MacLeish, J. B.
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Robert Lewis Taylor, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Stanley Kunitz, Selected Poems 1928-1958
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Francis Cornford