1961 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1961.

Events

January 24 – The American dramatist Arthur Miller and the film star Marilyn Monroe are granted a divorce in Mexico on grounds of incompatibility.
February – Sylvia Plath suffers a miscarriage. Several of her poems, including "Parliament Hill Fields", address the event.
March 15 – Hugh Wheeler's comedy Big Fish, Little Fish opens at the ANTA Theater in New York City, directed by Sir John Gielgud. It is one of the early Broadway plays to explore frankly the issue of male homosexuality.
March 20 – The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, becomes the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and its company the Royal Shakespeare Company, with Peter Hall as director.
May – Grove Press publishes Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer in the United States 27 years after its original publication in France. The book leads to one of many obscenity trials that test American laws on pornography in the 1960s.
May 27 – The British bookseller WHSmith closes the last of its in-store circulating library branches.
August 8 – The first issue of Fantastic Four, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, is published. It is considered the beginning of the post-World War II Marvel Comics line of superhero comic books.
August 18 – The British magazine Tribune publishes a letter from playwright John Osborne beginning "Damn You, England..."
September 8 – Publication of the science fiction novel series Perry Rhodan, der Erbe des Universums, originally written by K. H. Scheer and Walter Ernsting, is begun by Arthur Moewig Verlag in Germany in Romanhefte format. It is then published every week, attaining more than 2880 issues and around two billion total copies sold worldwide by the end of 2016.
September 14 – Novelist William Golding, having resigned a teaching post at Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury, sets off for the academic year 1961/1962 to teach at Hollins College, Virginia, United States.
November 10 – Joseph Heller's satirical novel Catch-22 is first put on sale by Simon & Schuster in the United States, after favorable advance reviews in October. Heller has been working on the book since 1953, based on his experiences as a bombardier during World War II. Its title, which becomes a phrase referring to a no-win situation, had previously been Catch-18.
unknown date – Michael Halliday publishes a seminal paper on the systemic functional grammar model.

New books

Births

January 8 – Arnaldur Indriðason, Icelandic crime novelist
January 11 – Jasper Fforde, English fantasy novelist
January 12 – Simon Russell Beale, Malaysian-born English Shakespearean actor
January 28 – Arnaldur Indridason, Icelandic writer
May 4 – Ishita Bhaduri, Indian poet and writer
May 17 – Han Dong, Chinese poet and novelist
May 19 – Jennifer Armstrong, American children's author
May 22 – Andrea Dunbar, English playwright
June 9 – Aaron Sorkin, American screenwriter, producer and playwright
June 23 – David Leavitt, American novelist
June 24 – Rebecca Solnit, American writer and essayist
July 7 – Eric Jerome Dickey, American writer
July 10 – Carol Anne Davis, Scottish crime writer
July 18 – M. J. Alexander, American author and photographer
July – Richard Flanagan, Australian novelist
August 20 – Greg Egan, Australian science fiction author
September 13 – Tom Holt, English historical and comic novelist and poet
September 26 – Will Self, English novelist, political commentator and broadcaster
October 5 – Sílvia Soler, Catalan writer and journalist
October 29 – Michael Gurr, Australian playwright
November 9 – Jackie Kay, Scottish poet and novelist
November 14 – Jurga Ivanauskaitė, Lithuanian writer
November 18 – Steven Moffat, Scottish TV writer
November 24 – Arundhati Roy, Indian writer and activist
November – Sarah Holland, English novelist, actress and singer
December 8 – Ann Coulter, American author
November 20 – David Mills, American journalist and TV writer
December 23 – Ezzat el Kamhawi, Egyptian novelist and journalist
December 30 – Douglas Coupland, Canadian author
unknown date – Winsome Pinnock, British playwright

Deaths

January 10 – Dashiell Hammett, American crime writer and screenwriter
January 21 – Blaise Cendrars, Swiss novelist and poet
January 30 – Dorothy Thompson, American journalist
February 4 – Hazel Heald, American pulp fiction writer
March 18 – E. Arnot Robertson, English novelist
April 9 – Oliver Onions, English novelist and ghost story writer
April 22 – Joanna Cannan, English pony book writer and detective novelist
April 30 – Jessie Redmon Fauset, American editor, writer and educator
May 26 – William Troy, American writer and teacher
June 2 – George S. Kaufman, American dramatist and critic
June 15 – Peyami Safa, Turkish journalist and writer
July 1 – Louis-Ferdinand Céline, French novelist and pamphleteer
July 2 – Ernest Hemingway, American novelist
July 12 – Mazo de la Roche, Canadian novelist
July 17 – Olga Forsh, Russian dramatist, novelist and memoirist
August 14 – Clark Ashton Smith, American writer
August 18 – Leonhard Frank, German writer
September 27 – H.D., American poet, novelist and memoirist
October 19 – Mihail Sadoveanu, Romanian novelist
November 2 – James Thurber, American humorist
December 7 – Roussan Camille, Haitian poet and journalist
December 26 – Gertrude Minnie Faulding, English children's writer and novelist

Awards

Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Lucy M. Boston, A Stranger at Green Knowe
Eric Gregory Award: Adrian Mitchell, Geoffrey Hill
Formentor Prize: Jorge Luis Borges and Samuel Beckett
Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Jennifer Dawson, The Ha-Ha
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: M. K. Ashby, Joseph Ashby of Tysoe
Lorne Pierce Medal: Robertson Davies
Miles Franklin Award: Patrick White, Riders in the Chariot
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins
Nobel Prize in Literature: Ivo Andrić
Premio Nadal: Juan Antonio Payno, El curso
Prix Goncourt: Jean Cau, La Pitié de Dieu
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Tad Mosel, All the Way Home
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Phyllis McGinley, Times Three: Selected Verse From Three Decades
National Book Award for Fiction: Conrad Richter, The Waters of Kronos
National Book Award for Nonfiction: William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
National Book Award for Poetry: Randall Jarrell, ''The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Poems and Translations''

1961 in literature

Events

New books

Fiction

Children and young people

Drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards