1964 in literature

The year 1964 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

 * Jean-Paul Sartre becomes head of the Organization to Defend Iranian Political Prisoners(ODIPP).
 * Michael Moorcock becomes editor of the science fiction magazine New Worlds.
 * W.H. Auden describes his "Vision of Agape" (June 1933) in his preface to the anthology The Protestant Mystics.
 * Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer is allowed to circulate legally in the United States by the U.S. Supreme Court three decades after its original publication in France.
 * Royal Shakespeare Company Experimental Group stages a Theatre of Cruelty season at the LAMDA Theatre Club, London.

New books

 * Chinua Achebe - Arrow of God
 * Lloyd Alexander - The Book of Three
 * Poul Anderson - Time and Stars
 * Louis Auchincloss - The Rector of Justin
 * J.G. Ballard - The Terminal Beach
 * Simone de Beauvoir - A Very Easy Death (Une Mort très douce)
 * Saul Bellow - Herzog
 * Thomas Berger - Little Big Man
 * Leigh Brackett
 * People of the Talisman
 * The Secret of Sinharat
 * Ray Bradbury - The Machineries of Joy
 * John Braine - The Jealous God
 * Richard Brautigan - A Confederate General From Big Sur
 * John Brunner
 * To Conquer Chaos
 * The Whole Man
 * Sara Bulette - The Splendid Belt of Mr. Big
 * Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan and the Madman
 * J. Ramsey Campbell - The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants
 * John Dickson Carr - Most Secret
 * Agatha Christie - A Caribbean Mystery
 * A.J. Cronin - A Song of Sixpence
 * Roald Dahl - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
 * Len Deighton - Funeral in Berlin
 * August Derleth editor - Over the Edge
 * Philip K. Dick - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
 * Ralph Ellison - Shadow and Act
 * Ian Fleming
 * Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
 * You Only Live Twice
 * William Golding - The Spire
 * Ernest Hemingway - A Moveable Feast
 * Carl Jacobi - Portraits in Moonlight
 * B.S. Johnson - Albert Angelo
 * Richard E. Kim - The Martyred
 * H.P. Lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels
 * Ruth Manning-Sanders - A Book of Dwarfs
 * John D. MacDonald - The Deep Blue Good-by, A Purple Place For Dying, and The Quick Red Fox
 * Sterling North - Rascal
 * Vladimir Nabokov - The Defense
 * Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (also known as James Ngigi) - Weep Not, Child
 * Jan Pfloog - The Farm Book
 * Anthony Powell - The Valley of Bones
 * Mario Puzo - Fortunate Pilgrim
 * Ellery Queen - And On the Eighth Day
 * Ruth Rendell - From Doon With Death
 * Hubert Selby Jr. - Last Exit to Brooklyn
 * Shel Silverstein - The Giving Tree
 * Clark Ashton Smith - Tales of Science and Sorcery
 * Wilbur Smith - When the Lion Feeds
 * Rex Stout - Trio for Blunt Instruments
 * Rex Stout - A Right to Die
 * Leon Uris - Armageddon
 * Jack Vance
 * The Houses of Iszm
 * The Killing Machine
 * Star King
 * Gore Vidal - Julian
 * Irving Wallace - The Man
 * Raymond Williams - Second Generation
 * Maia Wojciechowska - Shadow of a Bull

New drama

 * Brian Friel - Philadelphia Here I Come!
 * Frank Marcus - The Killing of Sister George
 * Joe Orton - Entertaining Mr Sloane
 * Peter Weiss - Marat/Sade

Poetry

 * Joseph Payne Brennan - Nightmare Need
 * Leonard Cohen - Flowers for Hitler
 * Philip Larkin - The Whitsun Weddings
 * Donald Wandrei - Poems for Midnight
 * Up The Line To Death: The War Poets 1914-1918 (anthology)

Non-fiction

 * Eric Berne - Games People Play
 * Allan Bloom with Harry V. Jaffa - Shakespeare's Politics
 * L. Sprague deCamp - Elephant
 * L. Sprague deCamp and Catherine Crook de Camp - Ancient Ruins and Archaeology
 * Dick Gregory - Nigger: An Autobiography
 * John F. Kennedy - A Nation of Immigrants (published posthumously)
 * Martin Luther King, Jr. - Why We Can't Wait
 * Jan Kott - Shakespeare, Our Contemporary
 * Herbert Marcuse - One-Dimensional Man
 * Marshall McLuhan - Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
 * Evelyn Waugh - A Little Learning

Births

 * March 7 - Bret Easton Ellis, author
 * July 3 - Joanne Harris, author
 * July 16 - Anne Provoost, author
 * date unknown - Dan Chaon, author
 * date unknown - Aleksandar Hemon, author

Deaths

 * January 17 - T.H. White, author
 * February 3 - Clarence Irving Lewis, philosopher
 * February 25 - Grace Metalious, writer Peyton Place
 * April 14 - Rachel Carson, environmentalist author
 * April 18 - Ben Hecht, screenwriter
 * May 13 - Hamilton Basso, novelist and journalist
 * August 3 - Flannery O'Connor
 * August 12 - Ian Fleming, James Bond author
 * September 18 - Sean O'Casey, dramatist
 * November 21 - Leah Bodine Drake, poet
 * December 21 - Carl Van Vechten

Awards

 * Nobel Prize for literature - Jean-Paul Sartre

Canada

 * See 1964 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

 * Prix Goncourt: Georges Conchon, L'Etat sauvage
 * Prix Médicis: Monique Wittig, L’Opoponax

United Kingdom

 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Sheena Porter, Nordy Bank
 * Eric Gregory Award: Robert Nye, Ken Smith, Jean Symons, Ted Walker
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Frank Tuohy, The Ice Saints
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Elizabeth Longford, Victoria R.I.
 * Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: R. S. Thomas

United States

 * American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Lillian Hellman
 * Hugo Award: Clifford D. Simak, Way Station
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Emily Cheney Neville, It's Like This, Cat
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
 * Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: no award given
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Louis Simpson: At The End Of The Open Road

Elsewhere

 * Premio Nadal: Alfredo Martínez Garrido, El miedo y la esperanza
 * Viareggio Prize: Giuseppe Berto, Il male oscuro