20th Century in Literature - World War II

World War II

Further information: 1940s literature

1940

  • Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler (Hungary, England)
  • The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - published in English 1966
  • For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
  • The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
  • Native Son by Richard Wright (USA, France)
  • The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (USA)
  • Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog by Dylan Thomas
  • Owen Glendower by John Cowper Powys
  • You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe
  • The Quiet Don by Mikhail Sholokhov (Russia) - two volumes, first published in 1934

Genre fiction

  • Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler (England)
  • Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

Plays

  • The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill

Non-fiction

  • To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson

1941

  • Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton
  • Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers
  • The Third Policeman by Flan O'Brien

Genre fiction

  • Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain

Non-fiction

  • Grey Eminence by Aldous Huxley

1942

  • The Stranger by Albert Camus (Algeria, France)
  • Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet (France)
  • Flight to Arras by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Plays

  • The Flies by Jean-Paul Sartre

1943

  • Arrival and Departure by Arthur Koestler
  • The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene
  • The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil (Austria) - trilogy, first volume published 1930

Genre fiction

  • Double Indemnity by James M. Cain
  • The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (France)

Poetry

  • Selected Poems by Keith Douglas (England)

Non-fiction

  • Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre
  • The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

1944

  • The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary
  • Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina) - short stories
  • The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham
  • Time Must Have a Stop by Aldous Huxley

Plays

  • The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (USA)

1945

  • Animal Farm by George Orwell
  • Watt by Samuel Beckett - published in 1953
  • Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
  • Black Boy by Richard Wright
  • Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson (England) - trilogy, first volume in 1939

Genre fiction

  • If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes (USA, France)
  • The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis (N Ireland) - first volume published in 1938

1946

  • Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (South Africa)
  • The Miracle of the Rose by Jean Genet
  • Froth on the Daydream by Boris Vian (France)
  • The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers

Poetry

  • Deaths and Entrances by Dylan Thomas

Plays

  • The Winslow Boy by Terence Rattigan (England)

Non-fiction

  • Alamein to Zem Zem by Keith Douglas
  • Memoirs of Hecate County by Edmund Wilson

1947

  • The Plague by Albert Camus
  • Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry (England, Canada)
  • Bend Sinister by Vladimir Nabokov
  • The Victim by Saul Bellow (Canada, USA)
  • The Conformist by Alberto Moravia (Italy)
  • The Middle of the Journey by Lionel Trilling (USA)
  • Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton
  • Of Love and Hunger by Julian MacLaren-Ross (England)
  • Funeral Rites by Jean Genet
  • Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

Plays

  • A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Non-fiction

  • Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (Netherlands)

1948

  • The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer (USA)
  • Confessions of a Mask by 'Yukio Mishima' (Japan)
  • The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
  • The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal (USA)
  • Ape and Essence by Aldous Huxley
  • Querelle of Brest by Jean Genet

Genre fiction

  • No Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase (England)

Plays

  • The Browning Version by Terence Rattigan

Non-fiction

  • The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (France — early feminist study

1949

  • Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
  • Roads to Freedom by Jean-Paul Sartre - trilogy, first volume published 1945
  • The Thief's Journal by Jean Genet
  • The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren (USA)
  • The Train Was on Time by Heinrich Böll (Germany)
  • The Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges
  • The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier (Mexico)
  • The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen

Genre fiction

  • The Trouble with Harry by Jack Trevor Story (England)
  • The Mating Season by PG Wodehouse

Plays

  • Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (USA)

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