Literature

In the literary world, any year warrants the attention that we are giving to 1968.  Authors are born and authors die, prizes are awarded, new publications make the public take notice, and critics and scholars continue to discuss the classics.  1968 saw the death of popular novelist Edna Ferber and of American classic John Steinbeck.  In England Cecil Day Lewis was named Poet Laureate by Queen Elizabeth II.  Canadian Mordecai Richler published Cocksure.  Tom Stoppard won the Tony Award for Best Play for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.  American Tom Wolfe published the 1960s classic, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and Upton Sinclair died. 

For more information on literature in the 1960s, search IUCAT for specific authors or titles.  The library also subscribes to many online databases that will lead you to more articles and books about the literature of the 1960s, worldwide.  Try some of these: 

Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature
Compiled by the Modern Humanities Research Association, ABELL contains more than 807,000 bibliographic records: monographs, articles, book reviews, essay collections, and dissertations published from 1920.

AustLIT
Full-text database of Australian creative and critical writing sponsored by eight Australian Universities and the National Library of Australia

Black Drama
When complete, will contain texts of 1,200 plays (many rare or out of print) written by over 100 playwrights from African diaspora countries.

Black Short Fiction
10,000 works by writers from Africa and the African Diaspora compiled from literary magazines, archives, and the personal collections of the authors, some previously unpublished.

Black Thought and Culture
Contains 989 sources with 947 authors, covering the non-fiction published works of African American leaders, including interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamphlets, letters, etc.

Black Women Writers
Provides full-text works by black women writers from the U.S. (18th century - 1970s), the Caribbean and Africa (second half of the 20th century).

Caribbean Literature
Caribbean literature database

Literature Criticism Online
Online compilation of Gale literary criticism series.

Literature Resource Center
Biographies, bibliographies, and critical analysis of authors from all time periods in many genres. Search by author, title, genre, literary movement or literary themes.

MLA International Bibliography
Indexes material in modern languages, literature, linguistics and folklore.

Twentieth Century North American Drama
Full texts of some 2,000 plays, including all types of U.S. and Candian dramas.