1963 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1963.

Events
January 2 – Traverse Theatre opens in Edinburgh. February 11 – American-born poet Sylvia Plath (age 30) commits suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in her London flat during the cold winter of 1962–63 in the United Kingdom about a month after publication of her only novel, the semi-autobiographical The Bell Jar and six days after writing her last poem, "Edge". March – Publications and Entertainments Act in South Africa enables the government to impose strict censorship there. Des Troye's novel An Act of Immorality (an attack on the miscegenation provisions of the country's Immorality Act) is among the first works to be prohibited under it. March 19 – Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop premières the ensemble musical play Oh, What a Lovely War! at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in London. May 17 – First Galician Literature Day. July 16 – A day after being admitted to the Acland Hospital in Oxford, C. S. Lewis suffers a heart attack; although later discharged, he dies four months later, at home in Oxford.[1] August 20 – The Royal Shakespeare Company introduces its performance cycle of Shakespeare's history plays under the title The War of the Roses, adapted and directed by John Barton and Peter Hall, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, England. October 21 – Release of the first film from Merchant Ivory Productions, The Householder with screenplay adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from her own novel. October 22 – The National Theatre Company in the United Kingdom, newly formed under artistic director Laurence Olivier,[2] gives its first performance, with Peter O'Toole as Hamlet, in London.[3] November 17 – Fictional hero 8 Man, created by science fiction writer Kazumasa Hirai and manga artist Jiro Kuwata, appears in print for the first time. Novy Mir publishes three further short stories by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn critical of the Soviet regime, including "Matryona's Home"; they will be the last of his works to be published in the Soviet Union until 1990. First modern publication by mainstream publishers in both Britain and the United States of John Cleland's novel Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 1748-9). The book is banned for obscenity in Massachusetts, triggering a court case by its publisher,[4] and a London retailer is prosecuted. Leslie Charteris publishes his final collection of stories featuring Simon Templar, also known as "The Saint", The Saint in the Sun (he first wrote about the character in 1928). After this, all future Saint books will be ghost-written by other authors, though Charteris will continue in an editorial capacity until the series ends in 1983. Grace Ogot's short story "A Year of Sacrifice" (later retitled "The Rains Came") is published in Black Orpheus. English novelist Anthony Burgess begins an affair with Italian translator Liana Johnson.

New books

 * The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Awards
American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Poetry: William Carlos Williams Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Hester Burton, Time of Trial Eric Gregory Award: Ian Hamilton, Stewart Conn, Peter Griffith, David Wevill James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Gerda Charles, A Slanting Light James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Georgina Battiscombe, John Keble: A Study in Limitations Miles Franklin Award: Sumner Locke Elliott, Careful, He Might Hear You Newbery Medal for children's literature: Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time Nobel Prize for literature – Giorgos Seferis Premio Nadal: Manuel Mejía Vallejo, El día señalado Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: William Faulkner – The Reivers Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: William Carlos Williams: Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: William Plomer