1946 in literature

See also: 1945 in literature, other events of 1946, 1947 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• November 7 – Walker Percy marries Mary Bernice Townsend
• Animal Farm by George Orwell – becomes book of the year in USA
• Frederick Buechner receives a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University.
• All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren is published.

New books

• All the King's Men – Robert Penn Warren
• Bridge on the Drina – Ivo Andric
• The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care – Benjamin Spock
• Delta Wedding – Eudora Welty
• I Spit On Your Grave – Boris Vian
• The Iceman Cometh – Eugene O'Neill
• Jule – George Wylie Henderson
• The Littlest Angel  – Charles Tazewell
• The Miracle of the Rose  – Jean Genet
• Mr. President – Miguel Angel Asturias
• Mister Roberts – Thomas Heggen
• The Story Of Dorothy Stanfield – Oscar Micheaux
• Strawberry Girl – Lois Lenski
• The Street – Ann Lane Petty
• Then and Now – W. Somerset Maugham

Births

• September 26 – Andrea Dworkin, author
• October 1 – Tim O'Brien, novelist
• October 11 – Leona Gom, author
• October 20 – Elfriede Jelinek, author
• October 28 – Sharon Thesen, poet
• November 7 – Diane Francis, Canadian journalist and author
• November 14 – Ellen Meloy, author

Deaths

• May 19 – Booth Tarkington, novelist and dramatist
• May 25 – Ernest Rhys, founder of the Everyman series
• July 8 – Orrick Glenday Johns, poet & playwright
• July 27 – Gertrude Stein, poet and dramatist
• August 13 – H. G. Wells, ground-breaking science fiction novelist
• unknown date – May Sinclair, novelist

Awards

• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Lois Lenski, Strawberry Girl
• Nobel Prize for literature: Hermann Hesse
• 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