1932 in literature


This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1932.

Events

Fiction


  • S. N. Behrman – Biography
  • Elias Canetti – Hochzeit
  • Noël Coward – Design for Living
  • Ian Hay – Orders Are Orders
  • Anthony Kimmins – While Parents Sleep
  • Edward Knoblock – Evensong
  • Ferdinand Kwasi Fiawoo – Toko Atolia
  • George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber – Dinner at Eight
  • W. Somerset Maugham – For Services Rendered
  • Ahmed Shawqi – Amirat el-Andalus
  • John Van Druten
  • *Behold, We Live
  • *Somebody Knows
  • Ödön von Horváth – Kasimir und Karoline

    Poetry

  • W. H. Auden – The Orators
  • Cecil Day-Lewis – From Feathers To Iron
  • An "Objectivist's" Anthology
  • Boris Pasternak – The Second Birth

    Non-fiction

  • Adrian Bell – The Cherry Tree
  • Henri Bergson – The Two Sources of Morality and Religion
  • Emil Brunner – The Divine Imperative: a study in Christian ethics
  • F. J. Harvey Darton – The Story of English Children's Books in England: Five Centuries of Social Life
  • Bernard DeVoto – Mark Twain's America
  • Annabel Jackson – A Victorian Childhood
  • T. S. Eliot – Selected Essays, 1917–1932
  • J. B. S. Haldane – The Causes of Evolution
  • Hugh Kingsmill – Frank Harris
  • F. R. Leavis – New Bearings in English Poetry
  • Q. D. Leavis – Fiction and the Reading Public
  • Maxwell House Haggadah
  • Beverley Nichols – Down the Garden Path
  • Walter B. Pitkin – Life Begins at Forty
  • E. C. Titchmarsh – The Theory of Functions
  • Florence White – Good Things in England
  • S. Fowler Wright – The Life of Sir Walter Scott

    Births

  • January 2 – Jean Little, Canadian children's fiction author
  • January 5 – Umberto Eco, Italian novelist and semiotician
  • January 18 – Robert Anton Wilson, American novelist and playwright
  • January 19 – George MacBeth, Scottish poet and novelist
  • February 7 – Gay Talese, American literary journalist
  • February 15 – Troy Kennedy Martin, Scottish scriptwriter
  • February 16 – Aharon Appelfeld, Israeli novelist and poet
  • March 4 – Ryszard Kapuściński, Polish journalist, traveller, poet and writer
  • March 18 – John Updike, American novelist and poet
  • March 31 – John Jakes, American historical novelist
  • May 7 – Jenny Joseph, English poet
  • May 8 – Julieta Campos, Cuban-Mexican author and translator
  • May 24 – Arnold Wesker, English dramatist
  • June 5 – Christy Brown, Irish autobiographer and poet
  • June 6 – Sara Banerji, English author and sculptor
  • June 18 – Geoffrey Hill, English poet
  • July 17 – Karla Kuskin, American children's writer and illustrator
  • July 18 – Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Russian poet and writer
  • August 16 – Christopher Okigbo, Nigerian poet
  • August 17 – V. S. Naipaul, Trinidad-born novelist
  • August 27 – Antonia Fraser, English biographer, novelist and historian
  • September 7 – Malcolm Bradbury, English novelist
  • September 9 – Alice Thomas Ellis, English novelist, essayist and cookery book author
  • October 27 – Sylvia Plath, American poet
  • October 31 – Katherine Paterson, Chinese-American author

    Deaths

  • January 12 – Ella Hepworth Dixon, English writer, novelist and editor
  • January 21 – Lytton Strachey, English biographer
  • January 28 – F. M. Mayor, English novelist
  • February 4 – Mona Caird, English novelist, essayist and feminist
  • February 10 – Edgar Wallace, English crime writer
  • February 15 – Minnie Maddern Fiske, American actress and playwright
  • March 16 – Harold Monro, British poet and poetry bookshop proprietor
  • April 20 – Giuseppe Peano, Italian mathematician and philosopher
  • April 23
  • *Evelyn Everett-Green, English novelist and children's writer
  • *Laura Kieler, Norwegian novelist and dramatic inspiration
  • April 26 – Hart Crane, American poet
  • May 22 – Augusta, Lady Gregory, Irish dramatist
  • June 17 – Sir John Quick, Australian politician and author
  • July 6 – Kenneth Grahame, Scottish-born children's and short-story writer
  • July 20 – René Bazin, French novelist
  • July 22 – J. Meade Falkner, English novelist and poet
  • August 29 – Raymond Knister, Canadian writer
  • September 5 – Paul Bern, German-American screenwriter
  • October 5 – Christopher Brennan, Australian poet
  • October 14 – Ahmed Shawqi, Egyptian poet
  • November 13 – Catherine Isabella Dodd, English education writer and novelist
  • November 17 – Charles W. Chesnutt, American writer
  • November 23 – Henry S. Whitehead, American genre novelist

    Awards

  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Helen de Guerry Simpson, Boomerang
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Stephen Gwynn, The Life of Mary Kingsley
  • Newbery Medal for children's literature: Laura Adams Armer, Waterless Mountain
  • Nobel Prize in literature: John Galsworthy
  • Prix Goncourt: Guy Mazeline, Les Loups
  • Pulitzer Prize for Drama: George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, Ira Gershwin, Of Thee I Sing
  • Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: George Dillon, The Flowering Stone
  • Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth