January 5 – Waiting For Godot, a play by the Irish writer Samuel Beckett, has its first public stage performance, in French as En attendant Godot, at the Théâtre de Babylone [de; fi; fr] in Paris.[1] Beckett's novel The Unnamable is also published in French this year.
May – The semi-autobiographical Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin is published. In 2001, it will be named as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the editors of the American Modern Library.[3]
September – French journalist Jean Borel's article "Zola a-t-il été assassiné?" in the September–October edition of Libération suggests that Émile Zola's death in 1902 was not accidental.[4][5]
November 5 – Dylan Thomas, on a poetry reading tour of the United States, is admitted to St. Vincent's Hospital, Manhattan in a coma, which continues until his death on November 9. Early versions of his play for voices Under Milk Wood have been given in the United States this year, but it is not broadcast in its final form until 1954.
^O'Toole, Fintan (2011-01-01). "The Fantastic Flann O'Brien". The Irish Times. Dublin. Retrieved 2011-10-02. A combination of his gradually deepening alcoholism and his habit of making derogatory remarks about senior politicians in his newspaper columns led to his forced retirement from the civil service in 1953. (He departed, recalled a colleague, "in a final fanfare of f***s".)