1924 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1924.

Events

January
*Writer Miguel de Unamuno is dismissed for the first time from his university posts by the Spanish dictator General Miguel Primo de Rivera and goes into exile on Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands.
*Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln ("Max") Schuster establish the New York City publisher Simon & Schuster, which initially specializes in crossword puzzle books.
January 15 – The world's first radio play, Danger by Richard Hughes, is broadcast by the B.B.C. from its London studios.
February 2 – A largely rewritten version of Roi Cooper Megrue and Walter Hackett's 1914 farce It Pays to Advertise opens in a production by actor-manager Tom Walls, at the Aldwych Theatre in London. It runs until 10 July 1925, a total of 598 performances, as the first in a sequence of twelve Aldwych farces.
March 3 – Seán O'Casey's drama Juno and the Paycock opens at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.
March
*Leonard and Virginia Woolf move themselves and the Hogarth Press back to a house in Bloomsbury at 52 Tavistock Square, London.
*Weird Tales magazine publishes H. P. Lovecraft's story "The Rats in the Walls" in the United States.
April – Ford Madox Ford publishes the first of four volumes set around World War I, titled Parade's End. It is completed in 1928.
April 12 – The Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore arrives in China, where his views prove controversial. While there, he becomes associated with the innovative poets Xu Zhimo and Lin Huiyin.
May 3 – F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald leave New York for France.
June – Ret Marut, perhaps previously Otto Feige and presumed later to be the writer B. Traven, leaves Europe for Mexico.
June 4 – E. M. Forster's novel A Passage to India is published in the U.K. He will write no further fiction in the remaining 46 years of his life.
September – Buddenbrooks, the first of Thomas Mann's works to appear in English, is published in a translation by the American Helen T. Lowe-Porter. The original German appeared in 1901.
unknown dates
*The Hebrew language poet Hayim Nahman Bialik relocates with his publishing house Dvir from Berlin to Tel Aviv.
*The Argosy Book Store is founded in New York City, United States.
* Luxemburger Illustrierte newspaper begins publication in Luxembourg.

New books

Births

January 30 – Lloyd Alexander, American writer
February 3 – Andrzej Szczypiorski, Polish writer
February 6 – Jin Yong, Chinese wuxia novelist
February 17 – Margaret Truman, American writer and soprano
April 3
* Errol Brathwaite, New Zealand author
* Josephine Pullein-Thompson, English children's novelist
April 8 – Humberto Costantini, Argentinian writer
April 20 – Miroslav Komárek, Czech historical linguist
April 24
*Clement Freud, German-born English writer and broadcaster
*Clive King, English children's writer and academic
April 26 – Solomon Mutswairo, Zimbabwean novelist and poet
May 1 – Terry Southern, American writer
May 3 – Yehuda Amichai, born Ludwig Pfeuffer, German-born Israeli Hebrew-language poet
May 8 – Petru Dumitriu, Romanian novelist
July 1 – Wang Huo, Chinese novelist and screenwriter
July 15 – Finn Bjørnseth, Norwegian novelist
July 30
* William H. Gass, American novelist
* José Antonio Villarreal, Chicano novelist
August 3 – Leon Uris, American author
August 6 – James Baldwin, American writer
August 15 – Robert Bolt, English screenwriter and playwright
August 17 – Evan S. Connell, American author
August 22 – Ada Jafri, Indian poet writing in Urdu
September 4 – Joan Aiken, English novelist
September 14 – Davidson Nicol, Sierra Leonean diplomat, author
September 27 – Josef Škvorecký, Czech-born novelist and publisher
September 30 – Truman Capote, American fiction writer
October 1 – Jimmy Carter, author and 39th President of the United States
October 3 – Harvey Kurtzman, American cartoonist and editor
October 5 – José Donoso, Chilean writer
October 29 – Zbigniew Herbert, Polish writer
November 21 – Christopher Tolkien, British academic and editor
November 22 – Rosamunde Pilcher, English novelist
December 10 – Mitzura Arghezi, Romanian book editor, illustrator, and politician
December 29 – Francisco Nieva, Spanish playwright, novelist and short story writer
unknown dates
*Deirdre Cash, Australian novelist
*Mengistu Lemma, Ethiopian playwright

Deaths

April 21 – Marie Corelli, English author
May ? – Muhammad bin Fadlallah al-Sarawi, Iranian-Iraqi faqih, religious writer and poet
May 1 – Lepha Eliza Bailey, American author, lecturer, and social reformer
May 4 – E. Nesbit, English children's author
June 3 – Franz Kafka, German-language author
June 30 – Jacob Israël de Haan, Dutch-Jewish novelist, poet and journalist
August 3 – Joseph Conrad, Polish-born English novelist
August 25 – Velma Caldwell Melville, American editor and writer
August 26 – Julia Carter Aldrich, American author and editor
October 9
*Valery Bryusov, Russian Symbolist poet, dramatist and translator
*Lin Shu, Chinese translator
October 12 – Anatole France, French poet, novelist and journalist
October 25 – Laura Jean Libbey, American novelist
October 29 – Frances Hodgson Burnett, English-born children's author
November 21 – Paul Milliet, French dramatist and librettist
November 22 – Herman Heijermans, Dutch dramatist
December 6 – Gene Stratton-Porter, American novelist and naturalist
December 26 – Arnold Henry Savage Landor, English writer and artist
December 27 – Jennie Thornley Clarke, American educator, writer, and anthologist
unknown date – Nicolae Velo, Aromanian poet and diplomat in Romania

Awards

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: E. M. Forster, A Passage to India
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Rev. William Wilson, The House of Airlie
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Charles Hawes, The Dark Frigate
Nobel Prize in Literature: Władysław Reymont
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Hatcher Hughes, Hell-Bent Fer Heaven
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Frost, New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes
Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Margaret Wilson, ''The Able McLaughlins''

1924 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards