1962 in literature

Events

• January 7 – In an article in The New York Times Book Review, Gore Vidal calls Evelyn Waugh "our time's first satirist".
• February 17 – Arthur Miller marries the photographer Inge Morath.
• February 28 – F. R. Leavis delivers the Richmond lecture Two Cultures? The Significance of C. P. Snow at Downing College, Cambridge, which arouses controversy.
• May 11 – The Finnish Ministry of Education forbids the import and distribution of eight children's books, published by Kynäbaari, because of the poor quality and clandestine abridgement of the translations.
• May – Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell are prosecuted and jailed for defacing library books in London.
• June 30 – The works of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin are denounced by the Roman Catholic Church.
• July – The General Law Amendment Act in South Africa denies freedom of speech to opposition activists and writers.
• September – Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath separate. From the beginning of the following month, Plath experiences a burst of creativity, writing in the last few months of her life most of the poems on which her reputation will rest. They include many that will appear in Ariel and Winter Trees. In December she moves to a London flat in a house where W. B. Yeats lived as a boy.
• November – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's novella One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the author's semi-autobiographical account of life in the gulag, is published in Novy Mir in an unprecedented acknowledgement of the Soviet Union's Stalinist past.
• December – L. Frank Baum's short story "The Tiger's Eye" appears for the first time nearly 60 after it was written.
• December 4 – A tape-recorded conversation on science fiction takes place between Kingsley Amis, C. S. Lewis and Brian Aldiss in Lewis's rooms at Cambridge.
• unknown dates
• *Richard Booth opens a second-hand bookshop at the old fire station in the future "bookshop town" of Hay-on-Wye in Wales.
• *Lynne Reid Banks goes to live in a kibbutz in Israel.
• *George Oppen publishes his first collection of poetry since Discrete Series in 1934, breaking a 28-year silence. He goes on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1969.
• *A parallel text edition of George Bernard Shaw's play Androcles and the Lion is published posthumously by Penguin Books in the UK, as the first published work in the phonetic Shavian alphabet devised by Ronald Kingsley Read.

  New books

Fiction

• H. G. Adler – Eine Reise
• Nelson Algren – Nelson Algren's Own Book of Lonesome Monsters: 13 Masterpieces of Black Humor
• Isaac Asimov, editor – The Hugo Winners
• James Baldwin – Another Country
• J. G. Ballard – The Drowned World
• William Barrett – Lilies of the Field
• Giorgio Bassani – The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
• Thomas Berger – Reinhart in Love
• Jorge Luis Borges – Ficciones
• Ray Bradbury
• *R is for Rocket
• *Something Wicked This Way Comes
• John Braine – Life at the Top
• John Brunner
• *Secret Agent of Terra
• *The Super Barbarians
• Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler – Fail-Safe
• Anthony Burgess
• *A Clockwork Orange
• *The Wanting Seed
• William S. Burroughs – The Ticket That Exploded
• Taylor Caldwell – A Prologue To Love
• Alejo Carpentier – El Siglo de las Luces
• John Dickson Carr – The Demoniacs
• Rosario Castellanos – Oficio de tinieblas
• Agatha Christie – The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
• James Clavell – King Rat
• Lionel Davidson – The Rose of Tibet
• Len Deighton – The IPCRESS File
• August Derleth
• *Lonesome Places
• *The Trail of Cthulhu
• August Derleth, editor – Dark Mind, Dark Heart
• Philip K. Dick – The Man in the High Castle
• Tonke Dragt – De brief voor de Koning
• Allen Drury – A Shade of Difference
• William Faulkner – The Reivers
• Gabriel Fielding – The Birthday King
• Ian Fleming – The Spy Who Loved Me
• C. S. Forester – Hornblower and the Hotspur
• Carlos Fuentes
• *Aura
• *The Death of Artemio Cruz
• Aldous Huxley – Island
• Hammond Innes – Atlantic Fury
• Shirley Jackson – We Have Always Lived in the Castle
• James Jones – The Thin Red Line
• William Melvin Kelley – A Different Drummer
• Jack Kerouac – Big Sur
• Ken Kesey – One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II – Seven Days in May
• James Krüss – Timm Thaler
• Manuel Mujica Láinez – Bomarzo
• John le Carré – A Murder of Quality
• Doris Lessing – The Golden Notebook
• Anne Morrow Lindbergh – Dearly Beloved
• H. P. Lovecraft – Dreams and Fancies
• Alistair MacLean – The Satan Bug
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez – In Evil Hour
• Eloise McGraw – The Golden Goblet
• Marcel Moreau – Quintes
• Penelope Mortimer – The Pumpkin Eater
• Vladimir Nabokov – Pale Fire
• M. T. Vasudevan Nair – Asuravithu
• Katherine Anne Porter – Ship of Fools
• Zofia Posmysz – Passenger
• Anthony Powell – The Kindly Ones
• Otfried Preußler – :de:Der Räuber Hotzenplotz|Der Räuber Hotzenplotz
• Reynolds Price – A Long and Happy Life
• Mary Renault – The Bull from the Sea
• Mercè Rodoreda – The Time of the Doves
• Sankar – Chowringhee
• Isaac Bashevis Singer – The Slave
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
• Richard Stark – The Hunter
• Mary Stewart – The Moon-Spinners
• Rex Stout
• *Gambit
• *Homicide Trinity
• Noel Streatfeild – Travelling Shoes
• Zaim Topčić – Black Snows
• Kurt Vonnegut – Mother Night
• Irving Wallace – The Prize
• Elie Wiesel – Day
• David Wilkerson – The Cross and the Switchblade
• Herman Wouk – Youngblood Hawke

  Children and young people

• Joan Aiken – The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
• Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire – Book of Greek Myths
• Tonke Dragt – De brief voor de Koning
• Madeleine L'Engle – A Wrinkle in Time
• Penelope Farmer – The Summer Birds
• Ezra Jack Keats – The Snowy Day
• Jean Little – Mine for Keeps
• Eloise Jarvis McGraw – The Golden Goblet
• Ruth Park – The Muddle-Headed Wombat
• Bill Peet – Smokey
• Otfried Preußler – The Robber Hotzenplotz
• Barbara Sleigh – No One Must Know
• Ivan Southall – Hills End
• Bernard Waber – The House on East 88th Street

  Drama

• Edward Albee – Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• Wilberto Cantón – Nosotros somos Dios
• Friedrich Dürrenmatt – Die Physiker
• Witold Gombrowicz – Historia
• Spike Milligan and John Antrobus – The Bed-Sitting Room
• David Rudkin – Afore Night Come
• Peter Shaffer – The Private Ear/The Public Eye
• David Turner – Semi-Detached

  Poetry

• Bella Akhmadulina – Struna
• George Oppen – The Materials
• Al Purdy – Poems for all the Annettes
• William Carlos Williams – Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems

  Non-fiction

• Philippe Ariès – L'Enfant et la vie familiale sous l'Ancien Régime
• W. H. Auden – The Dyer's Hand and other essays
• Helen Gurley Brown – Sex and the Single Girl
• Rachel Carson – Silent Spring
• Thomas B. Costain – The Last Plantagenets
• L. Sprague de Camp – Energy and Power
• August Derleth – 100 Books by August Derleth
• Milovan Đilas – Conversations with Stalin
• Milton Friedman – Capitalism and Freedom
• Thomas Kuhn – The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
• Dumas Malone – Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty
• W. Somerset Maugham – Looking Back
• V. S. Naipaul – The Middle Passage: Impressions of Five Societies – British, French and Dutch in the West Indies and South America
• Louis Nizer – My Life in Court
• Russell Page – The Education of a Gardener
• Anthony Sampson – Anatomy of Britain
• John Steinbeck –
• Percy Thrower – Percy Thrower's Encyclopaedia of Gardening
• Barbara Tuchman – The Guns of August

  Births

• January 17 – Sebastian Junger, American novelist, journalist and documentary film-maker
• January 29 – Olga Tokarczuk, Polish fiction writer and poet
• February 8 – Malorie Blackman, English writer for young adults and children
• February 21
• *Chuck Palahniuk, American novelist and journalist
• *David Foster Wallace, American novelist and essayist
• March 30 – Yōko Ogawa, Japanese novelist and essayist
• March 31 – Michal Viewegh, Czech fiction writer
• April 2 – Mark Shulman, American children's author
• April 6 – Javier Cercas, Spanish novelist and academic
• April 13 – Chris Riddell, South African-born English children's book illustrator
• April 22 – B. Jeyamohan, Tamil novelist
• May 11 - Amir Hamed, Uruguayan writer, essayist and translator
• May 12 – Yang Hongying, Chinese children's author
• May 17 – Lise Lyng Falkenberg, Danish novelist and biographer
• May 19 – Jonathan Dee, American novelist
• June 12 – Jordan Peterson, Canadian clinical psychologist and writer
• July 30 – Lavinia Greenlaw, English poet and novelist
• August 10 – Suzanne Collins, American novelist and television writer
• August 16 – Christian Cameron, American-born Canadian writer
• August 27 – Sjón, Icelandic novelist and poet
• September 22 - Nuzo Onoh, British-Nigerian writer
• October 11 – Anne Enright, Irish novelist
• October 19 – Tracy Chevalier, American historical novelist
• October 28 – Mark Haddon, English novelist and poet
• November 12
• *Neal Shusterman, American children's author and poet
• *Naomi Wolf, American writer and activist
• December 17 – Jan Bondeson, Swedish non-fiction writer

  Deaths

• January 17 – Gerrit Achterberg, Dutch poet
• January 20 – Robinson Jeffers, American poet
• January 24 – Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Turkish novelist and essayist
• February 16 – Frank Prewett, Canadian poet
• February 24 – Hu Shih, Chinese Nobel Prize-winning philosopher and language reformer
• March 3 – Pierre Benoit, French novelist
• March 20 – C. Wright Mills, American sociologist
• April or May – Constantin Gane, Romanian biographer and historical novelist
• April 24 – Emilio Prados, Spanish poet and editor
• May 24 – E. M. W. Tillyard, English literary scholar
• May 26 – Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, English poet
• June 2 – Vita Sackville-West, English poet and gardener
• June 27 – Paul Viiding, Estonian poet and critic
• July 6 – William Faulkner, American novelist and Nobel laureate
• July 8 – Georges Bataille, French writer
• July 21 – G. M. Trevelyan, English historian
• July 27 – Richard Aldington, English poet and novelist
• August 9 – Hermann Hesse, German-born Swiss novelist, poet and painter
• September 3 – E. E. Cummings, American poet
• September 21 – Ouyang Yuqian, Chinese dramatist
• September 22 – Jean-René Huguenin, French novelist and literary critic
• September 23 – Patrick Hamilton, English dramatist
• November 17 – Sandu Tudor, Romanian poet, journalist and theologian
• December 3 – Dame Mary Gilmore, Australian poet and journalist
• December 12 – Felix Aderca, Romanian novelist, critic, poet and journalist
• December 18 – Garrett Mattingly, American historian

  Awards

• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Fiction: William Faulkner
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Pauline Clarke, The Twelve and the Genii
• Eric Gregory Award: Donald Thomas, James Simmons, Brian Johnson, Jenny Joseph
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Ronald Hardy, Act of Destruction
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Meriol Trevor, Newman: The Pillar and the Cloud and Newman: Light in Winter
• Miles Franklin Award: Thea Astley, The Well Dressed Explorer and George Turner, The Cupboard Under the Stairs
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Elizabeth George Speare, The Bronze Bow
• Newdigate Prize: Stanley Johnson
• Nobel Prize for Literature: John Steinbeck
• Premio Nadal: José María Mendiola, Muerte por fusilamiento
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Frank Loesser, Abe Burrows, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Edwin O'Connor, The Edge of Sadness
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Alan Dugan, Poems
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Christopher Fry