1936 in literature

The year 1936 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

 * Life magazine is first published.
 * The Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's literature is established in the UK.

New books

 * Eric Ambler - The Dark Frontier
 * Henry Bellamann - The Gray Man Walks
 * Gottfried Benn - The Trainee Man
 * Arna Wendell Bontemps - Black Thunder
 * Elizabeth Bowen - The House in Paris
 * Carol Ryrie Brink - Caddie Woodlawn
 * Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan's Quest
 * James M. Cain - Double Indemnity
 * Morley Callaghan - Now that April's Here and Other Stories
 * Karel Čapek - War with the Newts
 * John Dickson Carr
 * The Arabian Nights Murder
 * The Punch and Judy Murders (as by Carter Dickson)
 * Willa Cather - Not Under Forty
 * Louis-Ferdinand Céline - Death on the Installment Plan
 * Agatha Christie
 * The A.B.C. Murders
 * Murder in Mesopotamia
 * Cards on the Table
 * Robert P. Tristram Coffin - John Dawn
 * John Dos Passos - The Big Money
 * William Pène du Bois - Otto at Sea
 * Daphne du Maurier - Jamaica Inn
 * Walter D. Edmonds - Drums Along the Mohawk
 * William Faulkner - Absalom, Absalom!
 * Margaret Flint -  The Old Ashburn Place]
 * Aldous Huxley - Eyeless in Gaza
 * Winifred Holtby - South Riding
 * Arthur Joseph - Dark Metropolis
 * Jonathan Latimer - The Lady in the Morgue
 * Andrew Lytle - The Long Night
 * Margaret Mitchell - Gone with the Wind
 * John A. Moroso - Nobody's Buddy
 * Ellery Queen - Halfway House
 * Ayn Rand - We the Living
 * Arthur Ransome - Pigeon Post
 * Israel Joshua Singer - The Brothers Ashkenazi
 * John Steinbeck - In Dubious Battle
 * Rex Stout - The Rubber Band
 * Phoebe Atwood Taylor
 * The Crimson Patch
 * Out of Order
 * S. S. Van Dine - The Kidnap Murder Case
 * Ethel Lina White - The Wheel Spins (later The Lady Vanishes)

New drama

 * W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood - The Ascent of F6
 * Bertolt Brecht - Round Heads and Pointed Heads
 * Noël Coward - Tonight at 8:30 and Present Laughter
 * Federico García Lorca - The House of Bernarda Alba (written)
 * Clare Boothe Luce - The Women
 * Terence Rattigan - French Without Tears
 * Irwin Shaw - Bury the Dead

Non-fiction

 * John Dickson Carr - The Murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey
 * Carl Gustav Jung - The Idea of Redemption in Alchemy.
 * John Maynard Keynes - The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money
 * C. S. Lewis - The Allegory of Love
 * Edwin Muir - Scott and Scotland
 * Olavi Paavolainen - Kolmannen valtakunnan vieraana

Births

 * January 10 - Stephen Ambrose, controversial historian (d. 2002)
 * January 22 - Joseph Wambaugh, author
 * February 18 - Jean M. Auel, Earth's Children author
 * May 23 - Ian Kennedy Martin, scriptwriter
 * June 23 - Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull author
 * June 24 - J. H. Prynne, poet
 * July 22 - Tom Robbins, novelist
 * August 24 - A. S. Byatt, novelist
 * September 20 - Andrew Davies, TV and film writer
 * October 5 - Václav Havel, dramatist and first president of the Czech Republic
 * November 17 - John Wells, satirical writer and actor (d. 1998)
 * November 20 - Don DeLillo, United States novelist
 * date unknown - Duff Hart-Davis, biographer and journalist

Deaths

 * January 18 - Rudyard Kipling, British writer (b. 1865) - Nobel prize for literature (1907)
 * March 16 - Marguerite Durand, journalist
 * April 30 - A. E. Housman, poet (b. 1859)
 * June 11 - Robert E. Howard, American fantasy writer (suicide)
 * June 12 - M. R. James, writer of ghost stories (b. 1862)
 * June 14 - G. K. Chesterton, author (b. 1874)
 * June 14 - Maxim Gorky, dramatist (b. 1868)
 * August 15 - Grazia Deledda, Sardinian writer - Nobel prize for literature (1926)
 * August 19 - Federico García Lorca, dramatist and poet
 * November 12 - Stefan Grabinski, "the Polish Poe"
 * December 10 - Luigi Pirandello, dramatist and novelist (b. 1867)
 * December 28 - John Cornford, Communist poet

Awards

 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Arthur Ransome, Pigeon Post
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Winifred Holtby, South Riding
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Edward Sackville West, A Flame in Sunlight: The Life and Work of Thomas de Quincey
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Carol Ryrie Brink, Caddie Woodlawn
 * Nobel Prize for literature: Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Robert E. Sherwood, Idiot's Delight
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert P. Tristram Coffin: Strange Holiness
 * Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Harold L. Davis - Honey in the Horn