1947 in literature

The year 1947 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

 * The Diary of Anne Frank is published for the first time.
 * Jack Kerouac makes the journey which he will later chronicle in his book On the Road.
 * Dorothy Parker divorces Alan Campbell for the first time.
 * Dalton Trumbo refuses to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Ring Lardner, Jr., attends, but refuses to answer any questions.
 * Kenneth Arnold witnesses nine Flying saucers, starting a huge amount of enthuisiasm in science fiction writers and scientists.

New books

 * Cynthia Asquith - This Mortal Coil
 * Carolyn Sherwin Bailey - Miss Hickory
 * François Boyer - Les Jeux Inconnus
 * Ray Bradbury - Dark Carnival (debut book)
 * Margaret Wise Brown - Goodnight Moon
 * Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan and the Foreign Legion
 * Italo Calvino - The Path to the Nest of Spiders
 * Albert Camus - The Plague (La Peste)
 * John Dickson Carr
 * The Sleeping Sphinx
 * Dr. Fell, Detective, and Other Stories
 * Agatha Christie - The Labours of Hercules
 * Thomas B. Costain - The Moneyman
 * Jean Genet - Querelle de Brest
 * Robert A. Heinlein - Rocket Ship Galileo
 * William Hope Hodgson - Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder
 * Carl Jacobi - Revelations in Black
 * Yasunari Kawabata - Snow Country
 * Fritz Leiber, Jr. - Night's Black Agents
 * Malcolm Lowry - Under the Volcano
 * Thomas Mann - Doctor Faustus
 * Gabriel García Márquez - Eyes of a Blue Dog
 * W. Somerset Maugham
 * Creatures of Circumstance
 * Theatre
 * Oscar Micheaux - Masquerade, a Historical Novel
 * James A. Michener - Tales of the South Pacific
 * W.O. Mitchell - Who Has Seen the Wind?
 * Alberto Moravia - The Woman of Rome (La Romana)
 * Willard Motley - Knock On Any Door
 * Vladimir Nabokov - Bend Sinister
 * Cesare Pavese - Il compagno
 * Arthur Ransome - Great Northern?
 * Michael Sadleir - Forlorn Sunset
 * Samuel Shellabarger - Prince of Foxes
 * Mickey Spillane - I, the Jury
 * John Steinbeck - The Pearl
 * Rex Stout - Too Many Women
 * Phoebe Atwood Taylor - The Iron Clew (as by Alice Tilton)
 * Philip Toynbee - Tea with Mrs Goodman
 * Boris Vian - Froth on the Daydream
 * Evelyn Waugh - The Loved One & Scott-King's Modern Europe
 * Jack Williamson - With Folded Hands

New drama

 * Jean Anouilh - Invitation to the Castle
 * Jean Genet - The Maids
 * Arthur Miller - All My Sons
 * Tennessee Williams - A Streetcar Named Desire

Poetry

 * Kingsley Amis - Bright November
 * August Derleth editor - Dark of the Moon: Poems of Fantasy and the Macabre
 * Abba Kovner - Ad Lo-Or ("Until No-Light")

Non-fiction

 * Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer - Dialectic of Enlightenment.
 * Emil Brunner - The Divine Imperative.
 * L. Sprague de Camp - The Evolution of Naval Weapons.
 * Bernard DeVoto - Across the Wide Missouri.
 * Walter Lippmann - The Cold War.
 * George Orwell - Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool.
 * Samuel Putnam - Paris Was Our Mistress: Memoirs of a Lost & Found Generation.

Births

 * February 3 - Paul Auster, novelist
 * April 12 - Tom Clancy, novelist
 * June 19 - Salman Rushdie, author
 * September 21 - Stephen King, author
 * October 19 - Giorgio Cavazzano, comics artist and illustrator

Deaths

 * February 1 - J. D. Beresford, short story writer
 * February 15 - Margaret Marshall Saunders, Canadian author
 * March 12 - Winston Churchill, American novelist
 * April 24 - Willa Cather
 * September 25 - Afawarq Gabra Iyasus, Ethiopian author and linguist
 * November 12 - Baroness Orczy, "Scarlet Pimpernel" author
 * December 7 - Tristan Bernard - French writer and lawyer
 * December 15 - Arthur Machen, journalist, novelist and short story writer
 * date unknown - Anna Wickham, poet

Awards

 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Walter de la Mare, Collected Stories for Children
 * Frost Medal: Gustav Davidson
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: L. P. Hartley, Eustace and Hilda
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Rev. C. C. E. Raven, English Naturalists from Neckham to Ray
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Carolyn Sherwin Bailey, Miss Hickory
 * Nobel Prize for literature: André Gide
 * Premio Nadal: Miguel Delibes, La sombra del ciprés es alargada
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Lowell: Lord Weary's Castle
 * Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Robert Penn Warren - All the King's Men