1949 in literature

The year 1949 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

 * Arthur C. Clarke becomes Assistant Editor of Science Abstracts.
 * Bertrand Russell receives the Order of Merit.
 * Jean-Paul Sartre completes his Les Chemins de la Liberté ("The Roads to Freedom") trilogy.
 * A statue of folk poet Larin Paraske is erected in Helsinki.

New books

 * Nelson Algren - The Man with the Golden Arm
 * Miguel Ángel Asturias - Men of Maize
 * Jorge Luis Borges - The Aleph
 * Elizabeth Bowen - The Heat of the Day
 * Paul Bowles - The Sheltering Sky
 * Fredric Brown - The Screaming Mimi
 * Pearl S. Buck - The Angry Wife
 * Dorothy Bussy - Olivia (published anonymously)
 * Taylor Caldwell - Let Love Come Last
 * John Dickson Carr
 * Below Suspicion
 * A Graveyard To Let (as by Carter Dickson)
 * Agatha Christie - Crooked House
 * Foster Fitzsimmons - Bright Leaf
 * A. B. Guthrie, Jr. - The Way West
 * John Hawkes - Cannibal
 * Marguerite Henry - King of the Wind
 * Shirley Jackson - The Lottery and Other Stories
 * Alaric Jacob - Scenes from a Bourgeois Life
 * Marghanita Laski - Little Boy Lost
 * H. P. Lovecraft - Something About Cats and Other Pieces
 * Nancy Mitford - Love in a Cold Climate
 * C. L. Moore - Beyond Earth's Gates
 * John O'Hara - A Rage to Live
 * George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four
 * Ruth Park - Poor Man's Orange
 * Karel Poláček - There Were Five of Us (Czech Bylo nás pět)
 * Ellery Queen - Cat of Many Tails
 * Harold Robbins - The Dream Merchants
 * Jack Schaefer - Shane
 * Anna Seghers - Die Toten Bleiben Jung
 * Nevil Shute - A Town Like Alice
 * Rex Stout - Trouble in Triplicate
 * Rex Stout - The Second Confession
 * Edward Streeter - Father of the Bride
 * Gwyn Thomas - All Things Betray Thee
 * Mika Waltari - The Egyptian
 * S. Fowler Wright - The Throne of Saturn
 * Frank Yerby - Pride's Castle

New drama

 * T. S. Eliot - The Cocktail Party
 * Christopher Fry - The Lady's Not for Burning
 * Jean Genet - Deathwatch (Haute Surveillance)
 * Arthur Miller - Death of a Salesman

Poetry

 * Carlos de Oliveira - Descida aos Infernos

Non-fiction

 * Audie Murphy - To Hell and Back
 * Finn Ronne - Antarctic Conquest
 * Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue - The Royal Road To Card Magic
 * John Dickson Carr - The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
 * John Gunther – Death Be Not Proud
 * Joseph Campbell - The Hero with a Thousand Faces
 * Marc Bloch - Strange Defeat; a Statement of Evidence Written in 1940
 * Margaret Mead - Male and Female
 * Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex
 * Thomas B. Costain - The Conquering Family, also known as The Conquerors (First book in the Plantagenet Series, also known as The Pageant of England)

Births

 * January 12 - Haruki Murakami, Japanese novelist
 * January 26 - Jonathan Carroll, American author of fantasy fiction
 * February 4 - Mark D. Devlin, memoirist (d. 2005)
 * March 26 - Patrick Süskind, German novelist
 * April 11 - Dorothy Allison, novelist and campaigner
 * June 5 - Ken Follett, novelist
 * July 15 - Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist
 * August 3 - Peter Gutmann, journalist
 * August 25 - Martin Amis, UK novelist and critic
 * November 2 - Lois McMaster Bujold, American author of science fiction and fantasy
 * October 5 - Peter Ackroyd, English author
 * December 24 - Alberto Pérez-Gómez, architectural historian
 * date unknown
 * David Gilmour, novelist
 * John Guy, historian and biographer
 * John Harris, political author
 * Jimmy McGovern, screenwriter

Deaths

 * January 11 - Nelson Doubleday, U.S. book publisher
 * February 11 - Axel Munthe, Swedish author
 * May 6 - Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgian poet, playwright and Nobel Laureate
 * June 10 - Sigrid Undset, Norwegian author and Nobel Laureate
 * June 14 - Russell Doubleday, U.S. author and publisher
 * August 16 - Margaret Mitchell, U.S. author of Gone with the Wind
 * September 19 - Will Cuppy, U.S. humorist
 * December 7 - Rex Beach, U.S. author
 * December 28 - Hervey Allen, U.S. author

Awards

 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Agnes Allen, The Story of Your Home
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Emma Smith, The Far Cry
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: John Connell, W. E. Henley
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Marguerite Henry, King of the Wind
 * Nobel Prize for literature - William Faulkner
 * Premio Nadal: Jose Suárez Carreño, Las últimas horas
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
 * Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: James Gould Cozzens, Guard of Honor
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Peter Viereck, Terror and Decorum