1961 in literature

See also: 1960 in literature, other events of 1961, 1962 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• The Moviegoer by Walker Percy is published.
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Scottish author Muriel Spark is published.
• V. S. Naipaul's book, A House for Mr. Biswas, is published.
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller is published.

New books

• The Agony and the Ecstasy  – Irving Stone
• El astillero (The Shipyard) – Juan Carlos Onetti
• Call for the Dead  – John le Carré
• The Carpetbaggers – Harold Robbins
• Catch-22  – Joseph Heller
• Daughter of Silence  – Morris West
• Franny and Zooey  – J.D. Salinger
• A House for Mr. Biswas – V. S. Naipaul
• James and the Giant Peach – Roald Dahl
• The Long Revolution – Raymond Williams (non-fiction)
• Mila 18  – Leon Uris
• The Moviegoer – Walker Percy
• A Passion in Rome – Morley Callaghan
• The Pawnbroker – Edward Lewis Wallant
• The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
• Resistance, Rebellion, and Death – Albert Camus
• Revolutionary Road – Richard Yates
• A Severed Head – Iris Murdoch
• The Stainless Steel Rat – Harry Harrison
• The Stone Angel – Margaret Laurence
• Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
• This Sweet Sickness – Patricia Highsmith
• Thunderball  – Ian Fleming
• 'Twixt Twelve and Twenty  – Pat Boone
• Venusberg – Anthony Powell
• The Wall – John Hersey
• The Winter of Our Discontent – John Steinbeck
• Zima Junction – Yevegeny Yevtushenko

Births

• February 21 – Chuck Palahniuk, author
• September 27 – Irvine Welsh, author
• December 30 – Douglas Coupland, author
• Greg Egan, author

Deaths

• January 10 – Dashiell Hammett, author
• January 21 – Blaise Cendrars, author
• July 2 – Ernest Hemingway, author

Awards

• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins
• Nobel Prize for literature – Ivo Andric
• 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