1945 in literature

The year 1945 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

 * November 1 - The magazine Ebony is published for the first time.
 * Noel Coward's short play, Still Life, is adapted to become the film, Brief Encounter.
 * Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is sentenced to eight years in a labour camp for criticism of Stalin.
 * The novelist Colette becomes president of the Académie Goncourt.
 * Vladimir Nabokov becomes a naturalized citizen of the United States.
 * André Malraux is appointed minister of information by French President Charles de Gaulle.

New books

 * Ivo Andric – The Bridge on the Drina (Na Drini Ćuprija)
 * Rev. W. V. Awdry – The Three Railway Engines
 * Frans Gunnar Bengtsson – The Long Ships (Röde Orm)
 * Robert Bloch – The Opener of the Way
 * Hermann Broch – The Death of Virgil (Der Tod des Vergil)
 * Gwendolyn Brooks – A Street in Bronzeville
 * Taylor Caldwell – The Wide House
 * John Dickson Carr – The Curse of the Bronze Lamp (as by Carter Dickson)
 * Vera Caspary – Bedelia
 * Agatha Christie – Sparkling Cyanide
 * Colette – Gigi
 * Thomas B. Costain – The Black Rose
 * Gertrude Crampton – Tootle
 * August Derleth
 * "In Re: Sherlock Holmes" – The Adventures of Solar Pons
 * Something Near
 * Varian Fry – Surrender on Demand
 * Henry Green – Loving
 * Ruth Krauss – The Carrot Seed
 * Margery Lawrence – Number Seven, Queer Street
 * Robert Lawson – Rabbit Hill
 * J. Sheridan Le Fanu – Green Tea and Other Ghost Stories
 * Carlo Levi – ''Christ Stopped at Eboli
 * C.S. Lewis – That Hideous Strength
 * H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth – The Lurker at the Threshold
 * Hugh MacLennan – Two Solitudes
 * Nancy Mitford – The Pursuit of Love
 * R.K. Narayan - The English Teacher
 * George Orwell – Animal Farm
 * Gabrielle Roy – Bonheur d'occasion (The Tin Flute)
 * Jean-Paul Sartre – The Age of Reason
 * Elizabeth Smart – By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept
 * John Steinbeck – Cannery Row
 * James Thurber – The Thurber Carnival (anthology)
 * Elio Vittorini – Uomini e no
 * Mika Waltari – The Egyptian
 * Evangeline Walton – Witch House
 * Evelyn Waugh – Brideshead Revisited
 * E.B. White – Stuart Little
 * Odella Phelps Wood – High Ground
 * Cornell Woolrich – Night Has a Thousand Eyes
 * Richard Wright – Black Boy

New drama

 * Mary Chase - Harvey
 * Jean Giraudoux - The Madwoman of Chaillot (posthumously produced)
 * Arthur Laurents - Home of the Brave

Poetry

 * Idris Davies - Tonypandy and other poems

Non-fiction

 * R. G. Collingwood – The Idea of Nature
 * Arthur Koestler – The Yogi and the Commissar and other essays
 * Betty MacDonald – The Egg and I
 * Karl Popper – The Open Society and Its Enemies
 * Bertrand Russell – A History of Western Philosophy And Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day
 * Ernesto Sábato - Uno y el Universo (One and the Universe)
 * Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. – The Age of Jackson

Births

 * January 3 - David Starkey, historian
 * January 30 - Michael Dorris, author (+ 1997)
 * February 25 - Shiva Naipaul, novelist
 * March 19 - Jim Turner, editor (+ 1999)
 * April 2 - Anne Waldman, poet
 * April 27 - August Wilson, playwright
 * April 30 - Annie Dillard
 * July 9 - Dean R. Koontz, novelist
 * September 1  Scott Spencer novelist
 * October 15 - John Murrell, dramatist
 * December 17 - Jacqueline Wilson, best-selling children's author
 * date unknown - Raymond E. Feist, American fantasy author
 * - Robert Gray, poet

Deaths

 * January 13 - Margaret Deland, novelist
 * January 22 - Else Lasker-Schuler, poet (b. 1869)
 * March 12 - Anne Frank, author of The Diary of Anne Frank, (b. 1929) at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
 * March 20 - Lord Alfred Douglas, poet and former lover of Oscar Wilde (b. 1870)
 * April 9 - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theologian (b. 1906, murdered by German Nationalsozialists)
 * May 15 - Charles Williams, British author
 * July 13 - Alla Nazimova, actress, scriptwriter and producer (b. 1879)
 * August 18 - E. R. Eddison, British fantasy writer
 * August 20 - Alexander Roda Roda, novelist
 * August 26 - Franz Werfel, German language writer
 * October 8 - Felix Salten, author of Bambi
 * November 21 - Robert Benchley, humorist
 * December 4 - Arthur Morrison, writer
 * December 28 - Theodore Dreiser, author (b. 1871)
 * date unknown - Charles Gilman Norris, novelist
 * date unknown - Charles Maurice Donnay, dramatist

Awards

 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: L. A. G. Strong, Travellers
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: D. S. MacColl, Philip Wilson Steer
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Robert Lawson, Rabbit Hill
 * Nobel Prize for literature: Gabriela Mistral
 * Premio Nadal: José Félix Tapia, La luna ha entrado en casa
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Mary Chase, Harvey
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Karl Shapiro, V-Letter and Other Poems
 * Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: John Hersey, A Bell for Adano