1958 in literature

The year 1958 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

 * August 18 - Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in United States.
 * First volume of The Civil War by Shelby Foote is published.
 * Rumours of a library ban on Enid Blyton's books in New Zealand.
 * Herbert Marcuse begins teaching at Brandeis University.
 * Jack Kerouac writes and narrates the "beat" movie, Pull My Daisy.
 * Ken Kesey is awarded a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship to enrol in the creative writing program at Stanford University.
 * Mervyn Peake begins to develop Parkinson's Disease.

New books

 * Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart
 * Kingsley Amis - I Like It Here
 * Jorge Amado - Gabriela, Cravo e Canela (Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon)
 * H. E. Bates -  The Darling Buds of May
 * Thomas Berger - Crazy in Berlin
 * James Blish - A Case of Conscience
 * Joseph Payne Brennan - Nine Horrors and a Dream
 * Algis Budrys
 * Man of Earth
 * Who?
 * Truman Capote - Breakfast at Tiffany's
 * John Dickson Carr - The Dead Man's Knock
 * Raymond Chandler - Playback
 * Agatha Christie - Ordeal by Innocence
 * Richard Condon - The Oldest Confession
 * A. J. Cronin
 * The Innkeeper's Wife
 * The Northern Light
 * L. Sprague de Camp - An Elephant for Aristotle
 * Patrick Dennis - Around the World with Auntie Mame
 * August Derleth
 * The Mask of Cthulhu
 * The Return of Solar Pons
 * Lawrence Durrell
 * Balthazar
 * Mountolive
 * Ian Fleming - Dr. No
 * Peter George - Red Alert
 * Graham Greene - Our Man in Havana
 * Cyril Hare - He Should Have Died Hereafter
 * Marlen Haushofer - We Murder Stella
 * Georgette Heyer - Venetia
 * Harold L. Humes - The Underground City
 * Jack Kerouac - The Dharma Bums
 * Frances Parkinson Keyes - Victorine
 * Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa - The Leopard (published posthumously)
 * John D. MacDonald - The Executioners
 * Ross Macdonald - The Doomsters
 * Richard Matheson - A Stir of Echoes
 * Alberto Moravia - ''La ciociara
 * R. K. Narayan - The Guide
 * Kenzaburō Ōe - Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids
 * Mary Renault - The King Must Die
 * Anya Seton - The Winthrop Woman
 * Dr. Seuss - Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories
 * Alan Sillitoe - Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
 * Terry Southern (as Maxwell Kenton) - Candy
 * Rex Stout
 * And Four to Go
 * Champagne for One
 * Robert Traver - Anatomy of a Murder
 * Jack Vance - The Languages of Pao
 * Rex Warner - Young Caesar
 * Jerome Weidman - The Enemy Camp

New drama

 * Samuel Beckett - Krapp's Last Tape
 * Brendan Behan - The Hostage
 * Max Frisch - The Fire Raisers and Phiipp Hotz's Fury
 * Jean Genet - The Blacks (first published)
 * Elmer Rice - Cue for Passion
 * Peter Shaffer - Five Finger Exercise
 * N. F. Simpson - The Hole
 * Arnold Wesker - Chicken Soup with Barley (first performed)
 * Tennessee Williams - Suddenly, Last Summer
 * Mohan Rakesh - Ashadh Ka Ek Din

Poetry

 * Eli Siegel - Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana: Poems
 * Clark Ashton Smith - Spells and Philtres

Non-fiction

 * Brendan Behan - Borstal Boy
 * Shelby Foote – The Civil War: A Narrative – Vol 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville
 * John Kenneth Galbraith - The Affluent Society
 * J. Edgar Hoover - Masters of Deceit
 * Aldous Huxley - Brave New World Revisited
 * Claude Lévi-Strauss – Structural Anthropology
 * John Maynard Smith - The Theory of Evolution
 * John Steinbeck – Once There Was A War
 * Raymond Williams – Culture and Society 1780-1950

Births

 * April 15 - Benjamin Zephaniah, dub poet
 * May - Roddy Doyle, novelist
 * June 10 - James F. Conant, philosopher
 * July 5 - Veronica Guerin, journalist (d. 1996)
 * date unknown
 * Robert Antoni, novelist
 * Lionel Fogarty, poet
 * Flora Fraser, biographer
 * Wayne Johnston, novelist
 * Margaret Smith, poet
 * Nega Mezlekia, Ethiopian writer

Deaths

 * February 4 - Henry Kuttner, science fiction author
 * March 21 - Cyril M. Kornbluth, science fiction writer
 * March 24 - Seamus O'Sullivan, poet
 * April 7 - Elliot Paul, American writer
 * May 5 - James Branch Cabell, fantasy fiction author
 * June 28 - Alfred Noyes, poet
 * September 11 - Robert W. Service, poet
 * October 24 - George Edward Moore, philosopher
 * October 30 - Rose Macaulay, novelist

Awards

 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Philippa Pearce, Tom's Midnight Garden
 * Hugo Award for Best Novel: Fritz Leiber, The Big Time
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Angus Wilson, The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Joyce Hemlow, The History of Fanny Burney
 * Miles Franklin Award: Randolph Stow, To the Islands
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Harold Keith, Rifles for Watie
 * Newdigate prize: Jon Stallworthy
 * Nobel Prize for literature: Boris Leonidovich Pasternak
 * Premio Nadal: J. Vidal Cadellans, No era de los nuestros
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Ketti Frings, Look Homeward, Angel
 * Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: James Agee, A Death In The Family
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Penn Warren, Promises: Poems 1954-1956