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

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

Uncertain date

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''

1946 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards