Calendar of Literary Facts

1973

  • Margaret Wilson dies
  • Mark Strand publishes The Story of Our Lives
  • Lanford Wilson publishes The Hot l Baltimore
  • Lanford Wilson receives an Obie Award for The Hot l Baltimore
  • Sam Shepard receives Obie Award for The Tooth of Crime
  • Rudy Wiebe receives the Governor General’s Literary Award in fiction for The Temptations of Big Bear
  • Eudora Welty receives the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for The Optimist’s Daughter
  • Joseph A. Walker publishes The River Niger
  • Victor E. Villasenor publishes Macho!
  • Joseph Wambaugh publishes The Onion Field
  • Vine Deloria Jr. publishes God Is Red
  • Salvador Allende’s government in Chile is overthrown by a military junta
  • David French publishes Of the Fields Lately
  • Deciding for the plaintiff in the case of Roe v. Wade the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down abortion laws in all 50 states and legalizes the right of American women to obtain abortions
  • The U.S. Supreme Court, in deciding the case of Miller v. California established a three-pronged test to determine obscenity, including the “community standards” test
  • Patrick White receives the Nobel Prize for Literature
  • Jason Miller receives the Pulitzer Prize in drama for That Championship Season
  • A Senate committee chaired by Sen. Sam Ervin investigates the Watergate Scandal, interrogating key figures in televised hearings
  • The U.S., Europe, and Japan experience an oil crisis as a result of the Arab oil embargo
  • In response to Western support for Israel, Arab oil-producing nations place an embargo on oil shipments to the U.S., Japan, and Europe
  • The Yom Kippur War is fought between Israel and several Arab countries
  • The Salt-1 treaty, to avoid nuclear war, is signed by leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union
  • Wounded Knee, South Dakota, is occupied by American Indian activists
  • The newly completed Sydney Opera House, designed by architect Joern Utzon, opens to the public
  • Pioneer 10 sends television images from Jupiter to Earth
  • The U.S. launches Skylab, an orbiting space station and laboratory
  • E. F. Schumacher publishes Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered
  • Etheridge Knight publishes Belly Song and Other Poems
  • Noel Coward dies
  • Maria Campbell publishes Halfbreed
  • Edward Brathwaite publishes The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy
  • Forrest Carter publishes The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales
  • Elizabeth Bowen dies
  • Rita Mae Brown publishes Rubyfruit Jungle
  • David Rabe publishes Two Plays by David Rabe
  • Pearl S. Buck dies
  • Iris Murdoch publishes Bruno’s Dream
  • Roland Barthes publishes Le Plaisir du texte (The Pleasure of the Text)
  • Robert Hass publishes Field Guide
  • Malcolm Muggeridge publishes Volumes 1 and 2 of his autobiography, Chronicles of Wasted Time
  • Jacques Maritain dies
  • Maxine Kumin receives the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for Up Country
  • Nicholasa Mohr publishes Nilda
  • Mongo Beti publishes Remember Ruben
  • Conrad Aiken dies
  • Margaret Crane publishes I Heard the Owl Call My Name
  • Brian Aldiss publishes Frankenstein Unbound
  • Rudy Wiebe publishes The Temptations of Big Bear
  • Audre Lorde publishes From a Land Where Other People Live
  • J. G. Farrell receives the Booker Prize for The Siege of Krishnapur
  • Thomas Pynchon publishes Gravity’s Rainbow
  • Erica Jong publishes Fear of Flying
  • Robertson Davies receives Governor General’s Literary Award in fiction for The Manticore
  • Tony Hillerman publishes Dance Hall of the Dead
  • Arna Bontemps dies (June 4)
  • William Inge dies (June 10)
  • Pablo Neruda dies (September 23)
  • W. H. Auden dies (September 29)
  • J. R. R. Tolkien dies (November 29)