• Eduardo De Filippo - Filumena Marturano

• Eugene O'Neill - The Iceman Cometh

• J. B. Priestley - An Inspector Calls

• Terence Rattigan - The Winslow Boy

Non-fiction

• R. G. Collingwood – The Idea of History

• Jean Genet – Miracle de la rose

• Benjamin Spock - The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care

Births

• August 29 - Leona Gom, author

• September 26 - Andrea Dworkin, author

• October 1 - Tim O'Brien, novelist

• October 20 - Elfriede Jelinek, author

• October 28 - Sharon Thesen, poet

• November 7 - Diane Francis, Canadian journalist and author

• November 18 - Alan Dean Foster, science fiction author

• December 11 - Ellen Meloy, author

Deaths

• March 1 - Adriana Porter, Wiccan poet

• March 19 - Catherine Carswell, novelist and biographer

• April 1 - Edward Sheldon, dramatist

• May 19 - Booth Tarkington, novelist and dramatist

• May 25 - Ernest Rhys, founder of the Everyman series

• June 2 - Carrie Ingalls, newspaper worker and sister of Laura Ingalls Wilder

• July 8 - Orrick Glenday Johns, poet & playwright

• July 22 - Edward Sperling, humorist

• July 27 - Gertrude Stein, poet and dramatist

• August 13 - H. G. Wells, ground-breaking science fiction novelist

• August 31 - Harley Granville-Barker, actor, dramatist and critic

• unknown date - May Sinclair, novelist

Awards

• 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 for literature: Hermann Hesse

• Premio Nadal: José María Gironella, Un hombre

• 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