1946 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1946.
Events
- January – The Penguin Classics imprint is launched in the U.K. under the editorship of E. V. Rieu, whose translation of the Odyssey is the first of the books published, and will be the country's best-selling book over the next decade.
- January 5 – The Estonian writer Jaan Kross is arrested and imprisoned by the occupying Soviet authorities.
- February – The poet Ezra Pound, brought back to the United States on treason charges, is found unfit to face trial due to insanity and sent to St. Elizabeths Hospital, Washington, D.C., where he remains for 12 years.
- May 20 – The English poet W. H. Auden becomes a United States citizen.
- May 22 – George Orwell leaves London to spend much of the next 18 months on the Scottish island of Jura, working on his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. This year his Animal Farm becomes book of the year in the United States.
- August 18 – The Assamese poet Amulya Barua is killed aged 24 in communal violence while studying at the University of Calcutta. His only collection of poems, Achina, is published posthumously.
- October 1 – The English première of J. B. Priestley's drama An Inspector Calls shows at the New Theatre, London. It stars Ralph Richardson.
- October 9 – The Broadway première of Eugene O'Neill's drama The Iceman Cometh, set in 1912, is held at the Martin Beck Theatre, New York City.
- October 10 – Die Chinesische Mauer by Swiss writer Max Frisch, receives its stage première.
- November 7 – Walker Percy, a U.S. writer of philosophical novels, marries Mary Bernice Townsend.
- November 8 – The English novelist and diarist Christopher Isherwood becomes a U.S. citizen.
- December 18
- *Brendan Behan is released from internment in the Republic of Ireland under an amnesty.
- *Damon Runyon's ashes are scattered over New York City from an airplane piloted by Eddie Rickenbacker.
- December 23 – Giovannino Guareschi publishes the first story about the priest Don Camillo in his magazine Candido.
- December 26 – David Lean's film of Great Expectations is released in England.
- unknown dates
- *The publisher August Aimé Balkema produces his first book in South Africa, Vyjtig Gedigte by the poet C. Louis Leipoldt.
- *The American writer and theologian Frederick Buechner resumes his B.A. degree course at Princeton University after war service.
New books
Fiction
- Jorge Amado – Seara Vermelha
- Francis Ambrière – The Long Holiday
- Charlotte Armstrong – The Unsuspected
- Miguel Ángel Asturias – El Señor Presidente
- René Barjavel – The Tragic Innocents
- Vicki Baum – Mortgage on Life
- Simone de Beauvoir – All Men are Mortal
- Algernon Blackwood – The Doll and One Other
- Jorge Luis Borges – Deutsches Requiem
- Tadeusz Borowski – This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen
- Phyllis Bottome – The Lifeline
- Christianna Brand – Suddenly at His Residence
- John Bude – Trouble A-Brewing
- Ivan Bunin – Dark Avenues
- John Dickson Carr
- *He Who Whispers
- *My Late Wives
- Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo – Los que aman, odian
- Vera Caspary – Stranger Than Truth
- Peter Cheyney
- * G-Man at the Yard
- * Uneasy Terms
- Agatha Christie – The Hollow
- A. E. Coppard – Fearful Pleasures
- Edmund Crispin – The Moving Toyshop
- Kenneth Fearing – The Big Clock
- Adonias Filho – Os servos da morte
- Errol Flynn – Showdown
- C. S. Forester - Lord Hornblower
- Pat Frank – Mr. Adam
- Carlo Emilio Gadda – That Awful Mess on Via Merulana
- Stella Gibbons – Westwood
- Anthony Gilbert – The Spinster's Secret
- Rumer Godden – The River
- William Lindsay Gresham – Nightmare Alley
- Ruth Guimarães – Água Funda
- João Guimarães Rosa – Sagarana
- Cyril Hare – With a Bare Bodkin
- Thomas Heggen – Mister Roberts
- Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas, editors – Adventures in Time and Space
- George Wylie Henderson – Jule
- William Hope Hodgson – The House on the Borderland and Other Novels
- Robert E. Howard – Skull-Face and Others
- Michael Innes
- * From London Far
- * What Happened at Hazelwood
- Christopher Isherwood – The Berlin Stories
- Cläre Jung – Aus der Tiefe rufe ich
- Nikos Kazantzakis – Zorba the Greek
- Arthur Koestler – Thieves in the Night
- Philip Larkin – Jill
- Marghanita Laski – To Bed with Grand Music
- Violette Leduc – L'Asphyxie
- Lois Lenski – Strawberry Girl
- Eric Linklater – Private Angelo
- Frank Belknap Long – The Hounds of Tindalos
- E. C. R. Lorac
- * Fire in the Thatch
- * The Theft of the Iron Dogs
- W. Somerset Maugham – Then and Now
- Carson McCullers – Member of the Wedding
- Oscar Micheaux – The Story of Dorothy Stanfield
- A. A. Milne – Chloe Marr
- Gladys Mitchell – Here Comes a Chopper
- Mervyn Peake – Titus Groan
- Ann Petry – The Street
- Isaac Rosenfeld – Passage from Home
- Anya Seton – The Turquoise
- Margit Söderholm – All the World's Delights
- Rex Stout – The Silent Speaker
- Cecil Street
- * Death in Harley Street
- * The Lake House
- * Situation Vacant
- Tugolbay Sydykbekov – Bizdin zamandın kişileri
- Phoebe Atwood Taylor
- *The Asey Mayo Trio
- *Punch with Care
- Ruthven Todd
- * Bodies in a Bookshop
- * The Death Cap
- * Death for Madame
- * Swing Low, Swing Death
- Gore Vidal – Williwaw
- A. E. van Vogt – Slan
- Boris Vian
- *I Spit on Your Graves
- *Vercoquin and the Plankton
- H. Russell Wakefield – The Clock Strikes Twelve
- Mervyn Wall – The Unfortunate Fursey
- Robert Penn Warren – All the King's Men
- Eudora Welty – Delta Wedding
- Henry S. Whitehead – West India Lights
- Kiichirō Yamate – Momotarō-zamurai
- Ivan Yefremov – The Land of Foam
- Seishi Yokomizo – ''The Honjin Murders''
Children and young people
- Rev. W. Awdry – Thomas the Tank Engine
- Carolyn Sherwin Bailey – Miss Hickory
- Nancy Barnes – Wonderful Year
- Enid Blyton – First Term at Malory Towers
- Godfried Bomans
- *De Avonturen van Pa Pinkelman
- *Sprookjes
- Jan Brzechwa – Academy of Mr. Kleks
- Gertrude Crampton – Scuffy the Tugboat
- Ernest Elmore – Snuffly Snorty Dog
- William Glynne-Jones – Brecon Adventure
- Elizabeth Goudge – The Little White Horse
- Graham Greene – The Little Train
- Racey Helps – Footprints in the Snow
- Tove Jansson – Comet in Moominland
- Madeleine L'Engle – Ilsa
- Astrid Lindgren – Pippi Goes on Board
- Sheila Stuart – Alison's Highland Holiday
- Charles Tazewell – The Littlest Angel
- Ivy Wallace – Pookie
- T. H. White – ''Mistress Masham's Repose''
Drama
- Arthur Adamov – L'Aveu
- Clifford Bax – Golden Eagle
- S. N. Behrman – Jane
- Ugo Betti – Delitto all'isola delle capre
- Jean Cocteau – L'Aigle à deux têtes
- Constance Cox – Vanity Fair
- Eduardo De Filippo
- *Filumena Marturano
- *Questi fantasmi
- Eynon Evans – Wishing Well
- Christopher Fry – A Phoenix Too Frequent
- Kenneth Horne – Fools Rush In
- Frederick Lonsdale – But for the Grace of God
- Ewan MacColl – Uranium 235
- Donagh MacDonagh – Happy as Larry
- Robert McLeish – The Gorbals Story
- Louis MacNeice – The Dark Tower
- Bernard Miles – Let Tyrants Tremble!
- Ronald Millar – Frieda
- Henry de Montherlant – Malatesta
- Eugene O'Neill – The Iceman Cometh
- J. B. Priestley – Ever Since Paradise
- Terence Rattigan – The Winslow Boy
- Nelson Rodrigues – Álbum de família
- Carl Zuckmayer – Des Teufels General
Poetry
- Elizabeth Bishop – North & South
- Josef Čapek – Básně z koncentračního tabora
- William Carlos Williams – ''Paterson, Book One''
Non-fiction
- Erich Auerbach – Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature
- Marc Bloch – L'Étrange défaite: Témoignage écrit en 1940
- R. G. Collingwood – The Idea of History
- John Stewart Collis – While Following the Plough
- Viktor Frankl – ...trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager
- Jean Genet – Miracle de la rose
- John Hersey – Hiroshima
- Jens Müller – Tre kom tilbake
- George Orwell – Critical Essays
- Jean-Paul Sartre – Existentialism and Humanism
- Benjamin Spock – The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care
- Władysław Szpilman – Śmierć miasta
- Paramahansa Yogananda – ''Autobiography of a Yogi''
Births
- January 4 – Lisa Appignanesi, Polish-born author and academic
- January 19 – Julian Barnes, English writer
- January 21 – Gretel Ehrlich, American travel writer, poet and essayist
- February 7 – Brian Patten, English poet
- February 25 – Franz Xaver Kroetz, German dramatist
- March 1 – Jim Crace, English author
- March 5 – Mem Fox, Australian children's writer
- April 2 – Sue Townsend, English comic novelist and playwright
- April 29 – Humphrey Carpenter, English biographer, children's fiction writer and radio broadcaster
- May 8 – Ruth Padel, English poet and author
- May 11 – Valerie Grove, English journalist and author
- May 12 – L. Neil Smith, American author and activist
- June 28 – John Birtwhistle, English poet and librettist
- July 22 – Ryoki Inoue, born José Carlos Ryoki de Alpoim Inoue, prolific Brazilian novelist
- July 26 – Joel Mokyr, Israeli economic historian
- July 28 – Fahmida Riaz, Pakistani writer
- August 1 – Paul Torday, English novelist
- August 2 – James Howe, American journalist and author of juvenile fiction
- August 29 – Leona Gom, Canadian poet and novelist
- September 12 – Neil Lyndon, English journalist and author of No More Sex War: The Failures of Feminism
- September 26 – Andrea Dworkin, American writer and activist
- October 1 – Tim O'Brien, American novelist
- October 4 - Susan Sarandon American actress
- October 19 - Philip Pullman, English author
- October 20 – Elfriede Jelinek, Austrian novelist and Nobel laureate
- October 28 – Sharon Thesen, Canadian poet
- November 7 – Diane Francis, Canadian journalist and author
- November 18 – Alan Dean Foster, American science fiction author
- November 25 – Marc Brown, author and creator of Arthur
- December 2 – Ibrahim Abdel Meguid, Egyptian novelist
- December 4 – Maria Antònia Oliver Cabrer, Majorca-born Spanish Catalan fiction writer
- December 11 – Ellen Meloy, American nature writer
- Sarah Harrison, English novelist and children's writer
Deaths
- January 6 – Dion Fortune, British occultist, Christian Qabalist, ceremonial magician and novelist
- February 11 – John Langalibalele Dube, South African Zulu writer
- March 19 – Catherine Carswell, Scottish novelist and biographer
- March 20 – Henry Handel Richardson, Australian novelist
- April 1 – Edward Sheldon, American dramatist
- April 11 – Dem. Theodorescu, Romanian novelist and journalist
- May 19 – Booth Tarkington, American novelist and dramatist
- May 20 – Jane Findlater, Scottish novelist
- May 25 – Ernest Rhys, English writer and book series editor of Welsh extraction
- Summer – Ștefan Foriș, Hungarian and Romanian journalist and communist activist
- June 6 – Gerhart Hauptmann, German dramatist, novelist and poet, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
- July 8 – Orrick Glenday Johns, American poet and playwright
- July 22 – Edward Sperling, Russian-born American humorist
- July 27 – Gertrude Stein, American novelist, poet and dramatist
- July 30 – Nikolai Alexandrovich Morozov, Russian poet and revolutionary
- August 13 – H. G. Wells, English novelist
- August 18 – Marion Angus, Scottish poet
- August 31 – Harley Granville-Barker, English actor, dramatist and critic
- September 9 – Violet Jacob, Scottish historical novelist and poet
- September 21 – Lydia J. Newcomb Comings, American author, educator, lecturer
- September 26 – William Strunk, Jr., American professor of English
- November 5 – Thomas Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden, English author and patron of the arts
- November 14 – May Sinclair, English novelist
- December 10 – Damon Runyon, American short-story writer
- December 17 – Constance Garnett, English translator
- December 23 – Ellen Marriage, English translator
Awards
- Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Elizabeth Goudge, The Little White Horse
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Oliver Onions, Poor Man's Tapestry
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Richard Aldington, Wellington
- Newbery Medal for children's literature: Lois Lenski, Strawberry Girl
- Nobel Prize in Literature: Hermann Hesse
- Premio Nadal: José María Gironella, Un hombre
- Prix Goncourt: Jean-Jacques Gautier, Histoire d'un fait divers
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Russel Crouse, Howard Lindsay, State of the Union
- Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: no award given
- Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: ''no award given''