1940 in literature


This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1940.

Events

Fiction


  • Jean Anouilh – Léocadia
  • Ugo Betti – Il cacciatore di anitre
  • Bertolt Brecht – Mr Puntila and his Man Matti
  • Agatha Christie – Peril at End House
  • Jean Cocteau – Le Bel indifférent
  • Artturi Järviluoma – Pohjalaisia
  • Terence Rattigan and Anthony Goldsmith – Follow My Leader
  • Lawrence Riley – Return Engagement
  • George Shiels – The Rugged Path
  • Vernon Sylvaine – Nap Hand
  • John Van Druten –
  • * Leave Her to Heaven
  • * Old Acquaintance
  • Emlyn Williams
  • *The Corn Is Green
  • *The Light of Heart

    Non-fiction

  • Mortimer J. Adler – How to Read a Book
  • "Cato" – Guilty Men
  • George Gamow – The Birth and Death of the Sun
  • G. H. Hardy – A Mathematician's Apology
  • Bernard Leach – A Potter's Book
  • C. S. Lewis – The Problem of Pain
  • Karl Mannheim – Man and Society in the Age of Reconstruction
  • Arthur Marder – The Anatomy of British Sea Power: a history of British naval policy in the pre-Dreadnought era, 1880–1905
  • A. A. Milne – War with Honour
  • Malcolm Muggeridge – The Thirties
  • Edmund Wilson – To the Finland Station

    Births

  • January 4 – Gao Xingjian, Chinese novelist
  • January 15 – Ted Lewis, English novelist
  • January 23 – Mario Levrero, Uruguayan novelist
  • February 9 – J. M. Coetzee, South African novelist
  • March 16 – Bernardo Bertolucci, Italian writer and film director
  • March 23 – Ama Ata Aidoo, Ghanaian playwright
  • March 28 – Russell Banks, American novelist
  • April 6 - Homero Aridjis, Mexican poet, novelist and environmentalist
  • April 13 – J. M. G. Le Clézio, French novelist
  • April 15 – Jeffrey Archer, English novelist, politician and perjurer
  • April 24 – Sue Grafton, American detective novelist
  • May 1 – Bobbie Ann Mason, American novelist, short story writer, essayist and literary critic
  • May 7 – Angela Carter, English novelist
  • May 8 – Peter Benchley, American novelist
  • May 13 – Bruce Chatwin, English novelist and travel writer
  • May 24 – Joseph Brodsky, Russian-born American poet and essayist
  • May 28 – Maeve Binchy, Irish novelist
  • July 17 – Tim Brooke-Taylor, English comedy writer and performer
  • July 31 – Fleur Jaeggy, Swiss-Italian fiction writer
  • September 3 – Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist
  • October 15 – Fanny Howe, American poet, novelist and short story writer
  • October 20 – Robert Pinsky, American poet
  • November 15 – René Avilés Fabila, Mexican writer
  • November 20 – Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, American Indologist and translator
  • December 5 – Peter Pohl, Swedish novelist
  • December 29 – Brigitte Kronauer, German novelist

    Deaths

  • January 1 – Panuganti Lakshminarasimha Rao, Indian writer
  • January 5 – Humbert Wolfe, British poet and epigrammist
  • January 27 – Isaak Babel, Russian journalist and dramatist
  • February 11 – John Buchan, Scottish novelist
  • February 29 – E. F. Benson, English novelist, biographer, memoirist and short-story writer
  • March 7 – Edwin Markham, American poet
  • March 10 – Mikhail Bulgakov, Russian novelist and playwright
  • March 12 – Florence White, English food writer
  • *Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish children's writer and Nobel laureate
  • April 13 – Mary Bathurst Deane, English novelist
  • June 10 – Marcus Garvey, Jamaican journalist and publisher
  • June 20 – Charley Chase, American screenwriter
  • June 21 – Hendrik Marsman, Dutch poet
  • August 4 – Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Russian-born Zionist leader, novelist and poet
  • August 7 – T. O'Conor Sloane, American editor
  • September 8 – Constantin Banu, Romanian politician, journalist, cultural promoter and aphorist
  • September 26 – W. H. Davies, Welsh poet
  • November 27 – Nicolae Iorga, Romanian historian, politician, culture critic, poet and playwright
  • December 21 – F. Scott Fitzgerald, American novelist
  • December 22 – Nathanael West, American screenwriter and satirist

    Awards

  • Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Kitty Barne, Visitors from London
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Charles Morgan, The Voyage
  • James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Hilda F. M. Prescott, Spanish Tudor: Mary I of England
  • Newbery Medal for children's literature: James Daugherty, Daniel Boone
  • Nobel Prize in literature: not awarded
  • Prix Goncourt: Francis Ambrière, Les grandes vacances
  • Pulitzer Prize for Drama: William Saroyan, The Time of Your Life
  • Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Mark Van Doren, Collected Poems
  • Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
  • King's Gold Medal for Poetry: Michael Thwaites