1931 in literature

The year 1931 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

 * Cherokee playwright Lynn Riggs' play Green Grow the Lilacs premiers. It would later be adapted by Rodgers and Hammerstein as Oklahoma!.
 * The very first Inspector Maigret novel is published under the title Pietr-le-Letton. Georges Simenon would eventually write 75 novels, as well as 28 short stories, featuring the pipe-smoking detective.
 * October 4 - Debut appearance of the Dick Tracy comic strip, created by cartoonist Chester Gould.

New books

 * Shmuel Yosef Agnon - The Bridal Canopy
 * Margery Allingham - Police at the Funeral
 * Pearl S. Buck - The Good Earth
 * Edgar Rice Burroughs
 * A Fighting Man of Mars
 * Tarzan the Invincible
 * Morley Callaghan - No Man's Meat
 * John Dickson Carr
 * Castle Skull
 * The Lost Gallows
 * Willa Cather - Shadows on the Rock
 * Agatha Christie - The Sittaford Mystery
 * Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth - The Cat Who Went to Heaven
 * A. J. Cronin - Hatter's Castle
 * E. E. Cummings - CIOPW
 * Detection Club - The Floating Admiral
 * William Faulkner
 * Sanctuary
 * These 13
 * Jessie Redmon Fauset - The Chinaberry Tree
 * Emma Goldman - Living My Life
 * Caroline Gordon - Penhally
 * Dashiell Hammett - The Glass Key
 * Georgette Heyer - The Conqueror
 * James Hilton - Murder at School
 * Knud Holmboe - Desert Encounter
 * Fannie Hurst - Back Street
 * Francis Iles - Malice Aforethought
 * Dennis F. Imbert - The Colored Gentlemen, A Product of Modern Civilization
 * Erich Kästner - The 35th of May, or Conrad's Ride to the South Seas
 * Carolyn Keene - The Secret of Shadow Ranch
 * Nancy Mitford - Highland Fling
 * Thomas Mofolo - Chaka
 * Leopold Myers - Prince Jali
 * Ilf and Petrov - The Little Golden Calf
 * Anthony Powell - Afternoon Men
 * Ellery Queen - The Dutch Shoe Mystery
 * Arthur Ransome - Swallowdale
 * Erich Remarque - The Road Back
 * Dorothy Sayers - Five Red Herrings
 * George S. Schuyler - Black No More
 * Nevil Shute - The Lonely Road
 * Georges Simenon - Pietr-le-Letton
 * Upton Sinclair - Roman Holiday
 * Phoebe Atwood Taylor - The Cape Cod Mystery
 * Sigrid Undset - Wild Orchid
 * Hugh Walpole - Judith Paris
 * Nathanael West - The Dream Life of Balso Snell
 * Virginia Woolf - The Waves
 * P.G. Wodehouse
 * Big Money
 * If I Were You

New drama

 * Federico García Lorca - When Five Years Pass (written)
 * Eugene O'Neill - Mourning Becomes Electra
 * Jean Giraudoux - Judith
 * Dodie Smith - Autumn Crocus
 * Thornton Wilder - The Long Christmas Dinner

Non-fiction

 * Ali Akbar Dehkhoda et al. - Dehkhoda Dictionary of the Persian language
 * Samuel Beckett - Proust
 * W. Chapman & V.C.A. Ferraro - A New Theory of Magnetic Storms
 * Julius Evola - The Hermetic Tradition
 * Irma S. Rombauer - The Joy of Cooking

Births

 * January 6 - E. L. Doctorow, author
 * January 9 - Algis Budrys, science fiction author
 * January 10 - Peter Barnes, playwright
 * January 17 - Mark Brandis, journalist and science fiction author
 * January 27
 * John Hopkins, screenwriter
 * Mordecai Richler, author (d. 2001)
 * February 10 - Thomas Bernhard, author (d. 1989)
 * February 11 - Larry Merchant, author/boxing commentator
 * February 12 - Janwillem van de Wetering, crime writer
 * February 18
 * Johnny Hart, cartoonist
 * Toni Morrison, writer, winner 1993 Nobel Prize in literature
 * February 19 - Robert Sobel, business writer
 * March 2 - Tom Wolfe, novelist
 * April 21 - Gabriel de Broglie, historian
 * April 29 - Robert Gottlieb, editor
 * June 12 - Robin Cook, British novelist (d. 1994)
 * June 21 - Patricia Goedicke, poet
 * July 4 - Sébastien Japrisot, novelist and screenwriter
 * July 7 - David Eddings, American novelist (d. 2009)
 * July 10
 * Nick Adams, screenwriter
 * Julian May, science fiction author
 * August 12 - William Goldman, author
 * August 22 - Maurice Gee, novelist
 * September 22 - Fay Weldon, novelist
 * October 8 - Dennis Silk, friend of Siegfried Sassoon and Edmund Blunden
 * October 19 - John le Carré, novelist
 * November 18 - Nikoloz Janashia, historian

Deaths

 * January 26 - Graça Aranha, Brazilian diplomat and writer (b. 1868)
 * March 27 - Arnold Bennett, novelist (b. 1867)
 * April 4 - André Michelin, originator of the Michelin Guide (b. 1853)
 * April 10 - Khalil Gibran, poet (b. 1883)
 * June 29 - Nérée Beauchemin, poet (b. 1850)
 * July 2 - Harald Høffding, Danish philosopher (b. 1843)
 * August 1 - Bertha McNamara, pamphleteer and bookseller (b. 1853)
 * August 15 - Delfín Chamorro, poet and language teacher (b. 1863)
 * August 27 - Frank Harris, author and editor (b. 1856)
 * August 31 - Hall Caine, author (b. 1853)
 * October 13 - Ernst Didring, Swedish writer (b. 1868)
 * October 21 - Arthur Schnitzler, Austrian dramatist (b. 1862)
 * November 3 - Juan Zorrilla de San Martín, epic poet (b. 1855)
 * November 5 - Ole Edvart Rolvaag, Norwegian-American writer (b. 1876)
 * December 10 - Enrico Corradini, novelist, essayist and journalist (b. 1865)
 * December 26 - Melvil Dewey, inventor of the most widely-used library classification system (b. 1851)
 * December 27 - Alfred Perceval Graves, author and collector of songs and ballads (b. 1846)

Awards

 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Kate O'Brien, Without My Cloak
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: J. Y. R. Greig, David Hume
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Elizabeth Coatsworth, The Cat Who Went to Heaven
 * Nobel Prize for literature - Erik Axel Karlfeldt
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Susan Glaspell, Alison's House
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Frost: Collected Poems
 * Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Margaret Ayer Barnes - Years of Grace