1954 in literature

The year 1954 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

 * Jack Kerouac reads Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible, which will influence him greatly.
 * John Updike graduates from Harvard with a thesis on George Herbert.
 * Lawrence Quincy Mumford becomes Librarian of Congress.

New books

 * Kingsley Amis - Lucky Jim
 * Poul Anderson - The Broken Sword
 * Isaac Asimov - The Caves of Steel
 * Hamilton Basso - The View from Pompey's Head
 * Simone de Beauvoir - The Mandarins
 * Pierre Boulle - The Bridge on the River Kwai (Le pont de la rivière Kwai)
 * Taylor Caldwell - Never Victorious, Never Defeated
 * John Dickson Carr
 * The Third Bullet and Other Stories
 * The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (with Adrian Conan Doyle)
 * Agatha Christie - Destination Unknown
 * Robertson Davies - Leaven of Malice
 * Daphne du Maurier - Mary Anne
 * Ian Fleming - Live and Let Die
 * William Golding - Lord of the Flies
 * Hergé - Explorers on the Moon
 * Mac Hyman - No Time for Sergeants
 * Frances Parkinson Keyes - The Royal Box
 * C. S. Lewis - The Horse and His Boy
 * Astrid Lindgren - Mio, my Mio
 * Kamala Markandaya - Nectar in a Sieve
 * Richard Matheson - I Am Legend
 * John Metcalfe - The Feasting Dead
 * James A. Michener - Sayonara
 * Alberto Moravia - Il disprezzo (A Ghost at Noon)
 * Iris Murdoch - Under the Net
 * J. B. Priestley - The Magicians
 * Marcel Proust - Jean Sauteuil (posthumously published)
 * Ellery Queen - The Glass Village
 * Pauline Réage - Histoire d'O (Story of O)
 * Mordecai Richler - The Acrobats
 * Anya Seton - Katherine
 * Dr. Seuss - Horton Hears a Who!
 * John Steinbeck - Sweet Thursday
 * Irving Stone - Love Is Eternal
 * Rex Stout
 * Three Men Out
 * The Black Mountain
 * Edward Streeter - Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation
 * Morton Thompson - Not as a Stranger
 * J. R. R. Tolkien
 * The Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring
 * The Lord of the Rings : The Two Towers
 * Amos Tutuola - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
 * Frank Yerby - Benton's Row

New drama

 * Brendan Behan - The Quare Fellow
 * Saunders Lewis - Siwan
 * Terence Rattigan - Separate Tables
 * Dylan Thomas - Under Milk Wood
 * Thornton Wilder - The Matchmaker
 * Dharamvir Bharati - Andha Yug (The Blind Age)

Non-fiction

 * L. Sprague de Camp - Lost Continents
 * Albert Einstein - Ideas and Opinions
 * Aldous Huxley - The Doors of Perception
 * Arthur Koestler - The Invisible Writing: The Second Volume Of An Autobiography, 1932-40
 * Mervyn Peake - Figures of Speech

Births

 * January 29 - Oprah Winfrey, actress, talk show host, producer, publisher
 * June 28 - A. A. Gill, journalist and critic
 * November - Christopher Pike, children's author
 * Esther Delisle, Quebec author & historian

Deaths

 * January 1 - Duff Cooper (1st Viscount Norwich), poet, biographer and politician
 * January 25 - M. N. Roy, philosopher and politician
 * March 28 - Francis Brett Young, novelist and poet
 * April 8
 * Juan Álvarez, historian
 * Winnifred Eaton, Canadian author
 * April 19 - Russell Davenport, journalist and publisher
 * May 3 - Earnest Hooton, popular writer on anthropology
 * August 3 - Colette, French novelist
 * September 19 - Miles Franklin, novelist
 * September 29 - W. J. Gruffydd, editor of Y Llenor (Literature)
 * December 6 - Lucien Tesnière, grammarian

Awards

 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Ronald Welch, Knight Crusader
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: C. P. Snow, The New Men and The Masters
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Keith Feiling, Warren Hastings
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Joseph Krumgold, ...And Now Miguel
 * Nobel Prize for Literature: Ernest Miller Hemingway
 * Premio Nadal: Francisco Alcántara, La muerte sienta bien a Villalobos
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: John Patrick, The Teahouse of the August Moon
 * Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: no award given
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Theodore Roethke: TheWaking
 * Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Ralph Hodgson