1938 in literature

The year 1938 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

 * The trilogy, U.S.A. by John Dos Passos, is published containing his three novels The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936).
 * Jorge Luis Borges is injured in an accident and develops blood poisoning in December. While recovering next year he will write the first short story in his later characteristic style.
 * Samuel Beckett's first completed novel Murphy is published.
 * Avant-garde musician and theoretician Pierre Schaeffer begins his writing career as an essayist for a number of French musical journals.

New books

 * Margery Allingham - The Fashion in Shrouds
 * Eric Ambler
 * Cause for Alarm
 * Epitaph for a Spy
 * Vladimir Bartol - Alamut
 * Elizabeth Bowen - The Death of the Heart
 * Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan and the Forbidden City
 * Taylor Caldwell - Dynasty of Death
 * John Dickson Carr
 * ''The Four False Weapons, Being the Return of Bencolin
 * To Wake the Dead
 * The Crooked Hinge
 * The Judas Window (as by Carter Dickson)
 * Death in Five Boxes (as by Carter Dickson)
 * Peter Cheyney - Can Ladies Kill?
 * Agatha Christie
 * Hercule Poirot's Christmas
 * Appointment with Death
 * René Daumal - A Night of Serious Drinking
 * John Dos Passos - U.S.A. trilogy
 * Daphne du Maurier - Rebecca
 * Lawrence Durrell - The Black Book
 * Rachel Field - All This and Heaven Too
 * Robert Graves - Count Belisarius
 * Graham Greene - Brighton Rock
 * Eric Knight - Lassie Come-Home
 * Emilio Lussu - Un anno sull'altopiano
 * C. S. Lewis - Out of the Silent Planet
 * Henry Miller - Tropic of Capricorn
 * Vladimir Nabokov
 * The Gift
 * Invitation to a Beheading
 * John O'Hara - Hope of Heaven
 * Ellery Queen
 * The Devil to Pay
 * The Four of Hearts
 * Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - The Yearling
 * Clayton Rawson - Death from a Top Hat
 * Ayn Rand - Anthem
 * Jean-Paul Sartre - La Nausée
 * Kate Seredy - The White Stag
 * Esphyr Slobodkina - Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business
 * Rex Stout - Too Many Cooks
 * Phoebe Atwood Taylor
 * The Annulet of Gilt
 * Banbury Bog
 * The Cut Direct (as by Alice Tilton)
 * Murder at the New York World's Fair (as by Freeman Dana)
 * B. Traven - The Bridge in the Jungle
 * S.S. Van Dine - The Gracie Allen Murder Case
 * Evelyn Waugh - Scoop
 * T.H. White - The Sword in the Stone
 * Gale Wilhelm - Torchlight to Valhalla
 * Virginia Woolf - Three Guineas

New drama

 * Jean Anouilh - Thieves' Carnival
 * Robert Ardrey - Casey Jones
 * Patrick Hamilton - Gas Light
 * Kaj Munk - Han sidder ved Smeltediglen
 * Robert E. Sherwood - Abe Lincoln in Illinois
 * Rodolfo Usigli - The Gesticulator
 * Thornton Wilder - Our Town
 * Emlyn Williams - The Corn is Green

Poetry

 * Alfred Kreymborg - The Planets: A Modern Allegory (radio play in verse)

Non-fiction

 * Hall Caine - Life of Christ
 * Cyril Connolly - Enemies of Promise
 * Geoffrey Faber - The Romance of a Bookshop 1904-1938
 * Elie Halévy - The Era of Tyrannies
 * Jomo Kenyatta - Facing Mount Kenya
 * Robert McAlmon - Being Geniuses Together, 1920-1930
 * Thomas Mann - The Coming Victory of Democracy
 * George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia

Births

 * January 5 - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (also known as James Ngigi), Kenyan novelist
 * February 12 - Judy Blume, children's author
 * April 29 - Larry Niven, sci-fi author
 * May 13 - Norma Klein, author
 * July 19
 * Nicholas Bethell, historian
 * Dom Moraes, poet and columnist
 * October 12 - Anne Perry, historical novelist
 * October 13 - Hugo Young, journalist
 * December 14 - Leonardo Boff, philosopher and theologian
 * date unknown
 * Christopher Booker, journalist and editor
 * Charles L. Mee, dramatist
 * M.K. Wren, novelist

Deaths

 * January 19 - Branislav Nušić, novelist and dramatist
 * March 1 - Gabriele D'Annunzio, poet and novelist
 * April 19 - Sir Henry Newbolt, poet
 * April 21 - Lady Ottoline Morrell, literary hostess
 * May 26 - James Forbes, dramatist and screenwriter
 * June 26 - James Weldon Johnson
 * June 26 - E.V. Lucas, essayist and biographer
 * August 7 - Konstantin Stanislavski, theatre director
 * September 15 - Thomas Wolfe, novelist
 * December 25 - Karel Čapek, science fiction author and dramatist
 * November 10 - Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of Turkey.

Awards

 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Noel Streatfeild, The Circus Is Coming
 * Hawthornden Prize - David Jones for In Parenthesis
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: C. S. Forester, A Ship of the Line and Flying Colours
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Sir Edmund Chambers, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Kate Seredy, The White Stag
 * Newdigate prize: Michael Thwaites
 * Nobel Prize for literature: Pearl S. Buck
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Thornton Wilder, Our Town
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Marya Zaturenska: Cold Morning Sky
 * Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: John Phillips Marquand - The Late George Apley Alysha Hobbs- How the Grinch Stole Christmas