1942 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1942.

Events

January 1 – The U.K. Book Production War Economy Agreement comes into force.
February 20 – Jean Bruller's novella Le Silence de la mer, about resistance to the Nazi occupation of France, is issued clandestinely as the first publication of Les Éditions de Minuit in Paris, under the pseudonym "Vercors". A hundred copies are distributed from late summer; the rest are destroyed by the occupying authorities.
February 22 – The Austrian-born novelist Stefan Zweig and his wife Lotte are found dead of a barbiturate overdose in their home in Petrópolis, Brazil, leaving notes indicating despair at the future of European civilization. The manuscript of Zweig's autobiography The World of Yesterday, posted to his publisher a day earlier, is first published in Stockholm later in the year as Die Welt von Gestern.
March – Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are introduced in his short story "Runaround", published in Astounding Science-Fiction.
March 1 – The Canadian novelist Robertson Davies begins a 13-year spell as editor of the Peterborough Examiner in Ontario.
March 28 – The Spanish poet Miguel Hernández dies of tuberculosis as a political prisoner in a prison hospital, having scrawled his last verse on the wall.
April 29 – The newspaper Asia Raja is first published in the Dutch East Indies under Japanese occupation; it will publish a number of literary works.
May – The German novelist Thomas Mann moves to California.
May 4 – The French novelist André Gide moves to Tunis.
May 8 – The English novelist David Garnett marries as his second wife, the painter and writer Angelica Bell, daughter of Garnett's lover Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell.
June 4 – The film Mrs. Miniver is released, for which the novelist James Hilton will share an Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) on 4 March 1943.
June 12 – Anne Frank, on her 13th birthday, makes the first entry in her new diary in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.
August – The French Resistance unit to which expatriate Irish writer Samuel Beckett belongs is betrayed. He has to flee from occupied Paris on foot to Roussillon, Vaucluse in south-eastern France, where he continues work on his novel Watt.
August 9 – The New York Times launches the national version of its influential New York Times Best Seller list.
August 28 – Polish writer Zofia Kossak-Szczucka, as head of the underground organization Front for the Rebirth of Poland, publishes in Warsaw her Protest! leaflet against the mass murder of Jews in German-occupied Poland.
Autumn – Vasily Grossman attends the Battle of Stalingrad as a reporter for the Soviet Army newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda. The experience later governs his novels Stalingrad and Life and Fate.
October – The English poet Keith Douglas takes part in the Second Battle of El Alamein, against orders.
November 19 – The Polish Jewish writer and artist Bruno Schulz is shot dead by a Gestapo officer, while walking through the "Aryan quarter" of his home town, Drohobych.

New books

Births

January 7
* Terenci Moix, Spanish writer
* Božin Pavlovski, Macedonian-Australian author
January 9 – Enrique Estrázulas, Uruguayan writer, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist and diplomat
January 19 – Paul-Eerik Rummo, Estonian poet, playwright and politician
January 31 – Derek Jarman, English film director, writer and diarist
February 1 – Terry Jones, Welsh comedic actor and writer
February – David Williamson, Australian playwright
March 2 – John Irving, American novelist and screenwriter
March 28 – Daniel Dennett, American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist
April 1 – Samuel R. Delany, American novelist, essayist and critic
April 4 – Kitty Kelley, American biographer and journalist
April 20 – Arto Paasilinna, Finnish novelist and journalist
April 27 – Ruth Glick, American cookery author and novelist
May 6 – Ariel Dorfman, Argentine/Chilean novelist, playwright and essayist
May 11 – Rachel Billington, English author
June 25 – Michel Tremblay, French Canadian novelist and playwright
July 2 – Mukhtar Shakhanov, Kazakh writer, editor and lawmaker
August 2 – Isabel Allende, Chilean novelist
August 7 – Garrison Keillor, American humorous writer and broadcaster
August 9 – David Steinberg, Canadian comedian, actor, writer, director, and author
August 22 – Uğur Mumcu, Turkish journalist and writer
September 1 – António Lobo Antunes, Portuguese novelist and physician
September 14 – Bernard MacLaverty, Irish writer
September 21 – Luis Mateo Díez, Spanish writer
October 16 – Joseph Bruchac, Native American author
October 20 – Bob Graham, Australian children's writer and illustrator
October 23
*Michael Crichton, American writer and director
*Douglas Dunn, Scottish poet and scholar
October 24 – Frank Delaney, Irish-born novelist, journalist and broadcaster
November 7 – Helen Garner, Australian writer
November 8 – Fernando Sorrentino, Argentine writer
November 19 – Sharon Olds, American poet
November 24 – Craig Thomas, Welsh novelist
December 6 – Peter Handke, Nobel-winning Austrian novelist and playwright
unknown date – Ghada al-Samman, Syrian writer

Deaths

January 8 - Chaudhry Afzal Haq, Indian writer and humanitarian
January 14 – Porfirio Barba-Jacob, Colombian writer
February 2 – Daniil Kharms, Russian poet, writer and dramatist
February 18 – Henri Stahl, Romanian historian, short story writer, memoirist and stenographer
March 16 – Rachel Field, American author and poet
March 26 – Carolyn Wells, American novelist and poet
March 28 – Miguel Hernández, Spanish poet
April 24 – Lucy Maud Montgomery, Canadian novelist and children's writer
May 11 – Sakutarō Hagiwara, Japanese poet
May 20 – Nini Roll Anker, Norwegian novelist and playwright
May 26 – Libero Bovio, Neapolitan dialect poet
May 29 – Akiko Yosano, Japanese poet and feminist
May – Jakob van Hoddis German poet
June 30 – Léon Daudet, French writer and journalist
July 1 – Peadar Toner Mac Fhionnlaoich, Irish writer in Irish
August 17 – Irène Némirovsky, Russian-born French novelist
August 27 – Lev Nussimbaum, Russian and Azerbaijani novelist
September 26 – Oskar Kraus, Czech philosopher
October 14 – Cosmo Hamilton, English dramatist and novelist
October 20 – Friedrich Münzer, German classicist
October 29 – Màrius Torres, Catalan Spanish poet
November 4
*Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson, American novelist and textbook and children's writer
*Clementine Krämer, German poet and short-story writer
December 23 – Konstantin Balmont, Russian Symbolist poet and translator

Awards

Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Denys Watkins-Pitchford, The Little Grey Men
Frost Medal: Edgar Lee Masters
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Arthur Waley, Translation of Monkey by Wu Cheng'en
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, Henry Ponsonby: Queen Victoria's Private Secretary
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Walter D. Edmonds, The Matchlock Gun
Nobel Prize in Literature: not awarded
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: not awarded
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: William Rose Benet, The Dust Which Is God
Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Ellen Glasgow, ''In This Our Life''

1942 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards