Modern Literature Time Chart

1970

A selection of publications

Maya Angelou: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Margaret Atwood: The Journals of Susanna Moodie
James Dickey: Deliverance
Graham Greene: Travels with My Aunt
Germaine Greer: The Female Eunuch
LeRoi Jones: It's Nation Time
W S Merwin: The Carrier of Ladders
Toni Morrison: The Bluest Eye
Michael Ondaatje: The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
Ezra Pound: Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX to CXVII
C P Snow: Strangers and Brothers
Derek Walcott: The Gulf

Historic and political events

UK: Conservative government under Edward Heath.
USA: Anti-war protestors shot at Kent State University, Ohio.
Vietnam: War spills into Cambodia & Laos.
Women's Liberation Movement formed.

Social history

Technology: Computer floppy disks invented. First jumbo jet. UK: Equal pay bill. Voting age reduced to 18. Oil found in North Sea. Gay liberation demonstration. New English Bible published. Start of Play for Today on TV. Popular music: Beatles split up. Jimi Hendrix dies.

1971

Maya Angelou: Just Give Me a Cool Glass of Water 'Fore I Die
Edward Bond: Lear
Frederick Forsyth: The Day of the Jackal
Bessie Head: Maru
E'skia Mphahlele: The Wanderers
V S Naipaul: In a Free State
Harold Pinter: Old Times
Anthony Powell: Books Do Furnish a Room
Wole Soyinka: Madmen and Specialists
Wallace Stegner: Angle of Repose
John Updike: Rabbit Redux
James Wright: Collected Poems

USA: Lieutenant Calley found guilty of Mylai massacre. Northern Ireland: First British soldier killed. Internment introduced. Provisionals break from Official IRA.
South Africa: Winnie Mandela jailed.
India: Border war with Pakistan after Bangladesh splits from Pakistan.
Greenpeace founded.

UK: Immigration bill. Decimal currency introduced. Open University opened. Technology: Astronauts drive on moon. Intel develops microprocessor. Cinema: Stanley Kubrick, A Clockwork Orange. Luchino Visconti, Death in Venice. Joseph Losey, The Go-Between.

1972

Athol Fugard: Sizwe Banzi is Dead
Ted Hughes: Crow
Buchi Emecheta: In the Ditch
LeRoi Jones (as Amiri Imamu Baraka): Spirit Reach
Thomas Keneally: The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith
Maxine Kumin: Up Country: Poems of New England
Alex la Guma: In the Fog of the Season's End
Wole Soyinka: A Shuttle in the Crypt
Tom Stoppard: Jumpers
Hunter S. Thompson: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

USA: Apr: Increased bombing of North Vietnam. Aug: Combat troops withdraw. Dec: Bombing halted. Watergate, charges against Nixon aides.
Northern Ireland: Bloody Sunday massacre. Ulster placed under Westminster rule.
Israel: Olympic compound stormed by 'Black September' Arab guerrillas.

UK: Miners' strike leads to state of emergency. Technology: Video cassette recorders introduced. Classical music: Harrison Birtwhistle, The Triumph of Time. Popular music: David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust. Cinema: Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather.

1973

Martin Amis: The Rachel Papers
Samuel Beckett: Not I
Howard Brenton: Magnificence
Graham Greene: The Honorary Consul
Bessie Head: A Question of Power
Iris Murdoch: The Black Prince
R K Narayan: My Days
Anthony Powell: Temporary Kings
Thomas Pynchon: Gravity's Rainbow
R S Thomas: Selected Poems
Peter Schaffer: Equus
Gore Vidal: Burr
Kurt Vonnegut: Breakfast of Champions
Derek Walcott: Another Life
Patrick White: The Eye of the Storm

UK: Britain joins European Community. IRA bombs in London.
Ireland: Power-sharing deal agreed.
USA: Withdrawal from Vietnam. Watergate – Nixon aides found guilty, start of select committee hearings.
Israel: Yom Kippur War.

UK: Energy crisis, power cuts, three-day week. IRA car bomb in London. Popular music: Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon. Cinema: François Truffaut, Day for Night. Bernardo Bertolucci, Last Tango in Paris. Martin Scorsese, Mean Streets, Lindsay Anderson, O Lucky Man.

1974

W H Auden: Thank You, Fog: Last Poems
Beryl Bainbridge: The Bottle Factory Outing
Samuel Beckett: That Time
Charles Bukowski: Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame
Nadine Gordimer: The Conservationist
Joseph Heller: Something Happened
David Jones: The Sleeping Lord
Philip Larkin: High Windows
Margaret Laurence: The Diviners
Vladimir Nabokov: Look at the Harlequins
Tom Stoppard: Travesties

UK: Labour Government under Harold Wilson. IRA bombs Westminster Hall.
USA: Watergate scandal, Nixon forced to resign, Gerald Ford, Republican, becomes President.
Ireland: Power-sharing executive collapses.
India: First nuclear bomb test.

UK: Inflation at 20%. Disappearance of Lord Lucan. Science: Experiments towards genetic engineering. Warnings about damage to ozone layer. Cinema: Federico Fellini, Amarcord. Louis Malle, Lacombe Lucien

1975

Maya Angelou: Oh Pray My Wings are Gonna Fit Me Well
John Ashbery: Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
Saul Bellow: Humboldt's Gift
Malcolm Bradbury: The History Man
Charles Bukowski: Factotum
E L Doctorow: Ragtime
Athol Fugard: Statements
Trevor Griffiths: The Comedians
Seamus Heaney: North
Kenneth Koch: The Art of Love
David Lodge: Changing Places
Harold Pinter: No Man's Land
Anthony Powell: Hearing Secret Harmonies
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: Heat and Dust
Stevie Smith: Collected Poems
Wole Soyinka: Death and the King's Horseman
Tennessee Williams: Memoirs

UK: Margaret Thatcher becomes leader of Conservative party.
Africa: Angola achieves independence. Civil war.
Vietnam: Khmer Rouge invades Cambodia. Saigon falls to communists. End of Vietnam war.
Lebanon: Civil war.

UK: One million unemployed. First 'bleepers'. Sex Discrimination Bill. North Sea oil on stream. Technology: First personal computer marketed in USA. Joint Russian-American space flight. Latin American influence: Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Sand. Popular music: Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run. Cinema: Milos Forman, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Sidney Lumet, Dog Day Afternoon. Steven Spielberg, Jaws

1976

Samuel Beckett: Ghost Trio
Saul Bellow: To Jerusalem and Back
Elizabeth Bishop: Geography III
Buchi Emecheta: The Bride Price
Thom Gunn: Jack Straw's Castle
Alex Haley: Roots
James Merrill: Divine Comedies
Anthony Powell: Infants of the Spring
Jean Rhys: Sleep It Off, Lady
Tom Stoppard: Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land
Gore Vidal: 1876
Kurt Vonnegut: Slapstick or Lonesome No More!
Derek Walcott: Sea Grapes

UK: Wilson retires, James Callaghan becomes Prime Minister.
Ireland: SAS unit sent in. Start of women's peace movement. European Commission accuses Britain of torture.
South Africa: Soweto riots.

UK: Concorde begins service. National Theatre completed. Riots in Notting Hill. Technology: Viking spacecraft lands on Mars. Popular music: Sex Pistols on Bill Grundy show - the Punk era. Cinema: Derek Jarman, Sebastiane. Wim Wenders, Kings of the Road. Martin Scorsese, Taxi Driver.

1977

Samuel Beckett: Collected Poems in English and French
Stephen Berkoff: East
Joseph Brodsky: A Part of Speech
Donald Davies: To Scorch or Freeze
Margaret Drabble: The Ice Age
Bessie Head: The Collector of Treasures
Christopher Isherwood: Christopher and his Kind
Toni Morrison: Song of Solomon
R K Narayan: The Painter of Signs
Howard Nemerov: Collected Poems
J B Priestly: Instead of the Trees
Paul Scott: Staying On
Sipho Sepamla: The Soweto I Love
Tom Stoppard: Professional Foul

USA: James Earl Carter, Democrat, becomes President.
South Africa: Death of Steve Biko.

UK: Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations. USA: Death of Elvis Presley. Execution of Gary Gilmour. Art: Opening of Pompidou Centre in Paris. Popular music: The Sex Pistols Never Mind The Bollocks. Cinema: George Lucas, Star Wars. Stephen Spielberg, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.

1978

Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise
Beryl Bainbridge: Young Adolf
A S Byatt: The Virgin in the Garden
Taylor Caldwell: Bright Flows The River
Graham Greene: The Human Factor
David Hare: Plenty
John Irving: The World According to Garp
David Malouf: An Imaginary Life
Armistead Maupin: Tales of the City
Ian McEwan: The Cement Garden
Iris Murdoch: The Sea
Harold Pinter: Betrayal
Dennis Potter: Pennies from Heaven
Craig Raine: The Onion, Memory
John Updike: The Coup

Vietnam: Vietnamese begin invasion of Cambodia to crush Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge.
Rhodesia: Plans for black majority rule.
Iran: Millions in demonstrations against Shah.
Guyana: Mass suicide of members of 'The People's Temple'.

UK: 'Winter of discontent', strikes, bad weather. Technology: First 'test tube baby'. Popular music: Disco music popular, tracks from Saturday Night Fever and Grease. Cinema: Christopher Reeve in Superman. Elizabeth Taylor in A Little Night Music.

1979

Samuel Beckett: Company
Peter Carey: War Crimes
Buchi Emecheta: The Joys of Motherhood
William Golding: Darkness Visible
Nadine Gordimer: Burger's Daughter
Seamus Heaney: Field Work
Ted Hughes: Moor Town
Norman Mailer: The Executioner's Song
V S Naipaul: A Bend in the River
Craig Raine: A Martian Sends a Postcard Home
Philip Roth: Ghost Writer
Peter Schaffer: Amadeus
William Styron: Sophie's Choice
Kurt Vonnegut: Jailbird
Derek Walcott: The Star-Apple Kingdom
Tom Wolfe: The Right Stuff

UK: Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher.
USSR: Russia invades Afghanistan.
Poland: Solidarity movement heralds end of Communism.
Rhodesia: First black Prime Minister.
Iran: Shah in exile, Ayatollah Khomeini takes over. Supporters of Khomeini take American hostages.
Nicaragua: Civil war, Sandinista rebels gain power.

UK: Airey Neave, and Lord Mountbatten, killed by IRA bombs. 'Yorkshire Ripper' murders. Anti-racist protestors clash with National front. Cinema: Monty Python's Life of Brian. Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now. Robert De Niro in The Deer Hunter.