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Calendar of Literary Facts
1944
Commentary, a monthly magazine of Jewish cultural advancement, begins publication; notable early contributors include Norman Mailer, Lionel Trilling, and Bernard Malamud Dorothy Livesay publishes Day and Night Friedrich A. von Hayek publishes The Road to Serfdom
Vietnam, long a French colony, declares its independence from France
First operational jet airplane, the ME-262, is tested in Germany
William Meredith publishes Love Letter from an Impossible Land German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun designs the V-2 rocket for long-range use against Britain
John Hersey publishes A Bell for Adano Alberto Pincherle publishes Agostino: Romanzo (Two Adolescents: Agostino and Disobedience )
Allied forces land on the Normandy coast on D-Day, establishing a western front to the European Theater of operations in World War II
Melvin B. Tolson publishes Rendezvous with America Martin Flavin receives the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for Journey in the Dark
Joseph Kesselring’s Arsenic and Old Lace
Jorge Luis Borges publishes Ficciones 1935-1944 Marilynne Robinson is born Saul Bellow publishes Dangling Man William Sansom publishes Fireman Flower, and Other Stories Karl Shapiro publishes V-Letter and Other Poems Johannes V. Jensen receives the Nobel Prize for Literature
Jean Anouilh’s Antigone
Mary Chase’s drama Harvey (November 1)
Angela Davis is born (July 6)
Terry Brooks is born (January 8)
Alice Walker is born (February 9) Leroy V. Quintana is born (June 10) Frederick Schiller Faust dies (May 12)
Armistead Maupin is born (May 13) Richard Ford is born (February 16) George Ade dies (May 16)
Paul Durcan is born (October 16)
Jacques Roumain dies (August 18)
Barry Beckham is born (March 19)
An assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler’s life, involving a briefcase-bomb, fails (July 20)
Buchi Emecheta is born (July 21) Janet Dailey is born (May 21)
Felice Picano is born (February 22)
Eavan Boland is born (September 24) Sherley Anne Williams is born (August 25) Stephen Leacock dies (March 28) Rita Mae Brown is born (November 28) Romain Rolland dies (December 30)
Jean Giraudoux dies (January 31)
Antoine de Saint-Exupery dies (July 31)
Richard Rodriguez is born (July 31)
