1938 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1938.

Events

 * January
 * The John Dos Passos trilogy U.S.A. is published, containing his novels The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936).
 * Samuel Beckett is stabbed in the chest in Paris and nearly killed.
 * February 21 – The gay American writer and composer Paul Bowles marries the lesbian American writer Jane Auer at a Reformed Church in Manhattan.
 * March 7 – Samuel Beckett's first completed novel Murphy is published in London.
 * July 11 – The first live drama adaptation in Orson Welles' The Mercury Theatre on the Air series on CBS Radio in the United States is broadcast: Bram Stoker's Dracula.
 * August – Muslims protest in London against passages they see as disrespectful to their religion in H. G. Wells' A Short History of the World (1922).
 * September 13 – The first production in Britain of a play by Bertolt Brecht, Mrs Carrar's Rifles, opens at the Unity Theatre, London.
 * October 30 – Orson Welles' radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds (with script by Howard Koch) is broadcast in The Mercury Theatre on the Air series.
 * December 24 – Jorge Luis Borges is injured in an accident and develops blood poisoning. While recovering the following year he will write the first short story in his later characteristic style.
 * Uncertain dates
 * The first complete performance of both parts of Goethe's Faust (1808/32) is given at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland.
 * The avant-garde musician and theoretician Pierre Schaeffer begins his writing career as an essayist for a number of French musical journals.

Fiction

 * Margery Allingham – The Fashion in Shrouds
 * Eric Ambler
 * Cause for Alarm
 * Epitaph for a Spy
 * Vladimir Bartol – Alamut
 * Anthony Berkeley – Not to Be Taken
 * Elizabeth Bowen – The Death of the Heart
 * Lynn Brock – The Silver Sickle Case
 * Edgar Rice Burroughs – Tarzan and the Forbidden City
 * Taylor Caldwell – Dynasty of Death
 * Victor Canning – Mr. Finchley Goes to Paris
 * John Dickson Carr
 * The Four False Weapons, Being the Return of Bencolin
 * To Wake the Dead
 * The Crooked Hinge
 * The Judas Window (as Carter Dickson)
 * Death in Five Boxes (as Carter Dickson)
 * Peter Cheyney
 * Can Ladies Kill?
 * The Urgent Hangman
 * Agatha Christie
 * Hercule Poirot's Christmas
 * Appointment with Death
 * Albert Cohen – Nailcruncher
 * Freeman Wills Crofts
 * Antidote to Venom
 * The End of Andrew Harrison
 * J.J. Connington
 * For Murder Will Speak
 * Truth Comes Limping
 * René Daumal – A Night of Serious Drinking (La Grande Beuverie)
 * Cecil Day-Lewis – The Beast Must Die
 * John Dos Passos – The Big Money (completing the U.S.A. trilogy)
 * Daphne du Maurier – Rebecca
 * Lawrence Durrell – The Black Book
 * Mircea Eliade – Marriage in Heaven (Nuntă în cer)
 * William Faulkner – The Unvanquished
 * Rachel Field – All This and Heaven Too
 * C. S. Forester
 * A Ship of the Line
 * Flying Colours
 * Anthony Gilbert – Treason in My Breast
 * Julien Gracq – The Castle of Argol (Au château d'Argol)
 * Robert Graves – Count Belisarius
 * Graham Greene – Brighton Rock
 * Walter Greenwood
 * Only Mugs Work
 * The Secret Kingdom
 * Xavier Herbert – Capricornia
 * Robin Hyde – The Godwits Fly (semi-autobiographical)
 * Michael Innes – Lament for a Maker
 * Margaret Kennedy – The Midas Touch
 * Alan Kennington – She Died Young
 * Emilio Lussu – Un anno sull'altopiano
 * C. S. Lewis – Out of the Silent Planet
 * Norman Lindsay – Age of Consent
 * Ngaio Marsh
 * Artists in Crime
 * Death in a White Tie
 * Gladys Mitchell – St Peter's Finger
 * Vladimir Nabokov
 * The Gift (Дар)
 * Invitation to a Beheading (Приглашение на казнь; serialization concludes)
 * E. Phillips Oppenheim – The Colossus of Arcadia
 * Kate O'Brien – Pray for the Wanderer
 * John O'Hara – Hope of Heaven
 * Ellery Queen
 * The Devil to Pay
 * The Four of Hearts
 * Graciliano Ramos – Vidas Secas (Barren Lives)
 * Ayn Rand – Anthem
 * Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings – The Yearling
 * Clayton Rawson – Death from a Top Hat
 * Joseph Roth – The Emperor's Tomb
 * Jean-Paul Sartre – Nausea (La Nausée)
 * Georges Simenon
 * The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By
 * Marie of the Port
 * Esphyr Slobodkina – Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business
 * Eleanor Smith – The Spanish House
 * Howard Spring – My Son, My Son
 * John Steinbeck – The Long Valley
 * Rex Stout – Too Many Cooks
 * Cecil Street
 * The Bloody Tower
 * Death at Low Tide
 * Invisible Weapons
 * Kressmann Taylor – Address Unknown (short story)
 * Phoebe Atwood Taylor
 * The Annulet of Gilt
 * Banbury Bog
 * The Cut Direct (as by Alice Tilton)
 * Murder at the New York World's Fair (as by Freeman Dana)
 * B. Traven – The Bridge in the Jungle
 * S. S. Van Dine – The Gracie Allen Murder Case
 * František Bernard Vaněk – Na krásné samotě
 * Henry Wade – Released for Death
 * Winifred Watson – Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
 * Evelyn Waugh – Scoop
 * Ethel Lina White – Step in the Dark
 * T. H. White – The Sword in the Stone
 * Gale Wilhelm – Torchlight to Valhalla
 * Francis Brett Young – Dr. Bradley Remembers

Children and young people

 * BB (Denys Watkins-Pitchford) – Wild Lone: The Story of a Pytchley Fox
 * Claire Huchet Bishop – The Five Chinese Brothers
 * Enid Blyton – The Secret Island
 * Eleanor Graham – The Children Who Lived in a Barn
 * Joan Kahn – "Ladies and Gentlemen," said the Ringmaster
 * Eric Knight – Lassie Come-Home
 * Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings – The Yearling
 * Kate Seredy – The White Stag
 * Noel Streatfeild – The Circus Is Coming
 * T. H. White – The Sword in the Stone
 * John F. C. Westerman – John Wentley Takes Charge (first in the John Wentley trilogy)
 * Ursula Moray Williams – Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse

Drama

 * Jean Anouilh – Thieves' Carnival (Le Bal des Voleurs)
 * Robert Ardrey – Casey Jones
 * Paul Claudel – L'Histoire de Tobie et de Sara (The History of Tobit and Sara, first version)
 * M. J. Farrell – Spring Meeting
 * Patrick Hamilton – Gaslight
 * H.M. Harwood – The Innocent Party
 * Esther McCracken – Quiet Wedding
 * Kaj Munk – Han sidder ved Smeltediglen (He sits by the melting pot)
 * Michael Pertwee – Death on the Table
 * J. B. Priestley – When We Are Married
 * Robert E. Sherwood – Abe Lincoln in Illinois
 * Dodie Smith – Dear Octopus
 * Stephen Spender – Trial of a Judge
 * Lesley Storm – Tony Draws a Horse
 * Arnold Sundgaard
 * Spirochete: A History
 * with Marc Connelly – Everywhere I Roam
 * Rodolfo Usigli – El gesticulador
 * Theodore Ward – Big White Fog
 * Thornton Wilder – Our Town
 * Emlyn Williams – The Corn is Green
 * Tennessee Williams – Not About Nightingales (written; first performed 1998)
 * W. B. Yeats – Purgatory

Poetry

 * Alfred Kreymborg – The Planets: A Modern Allegory (radio play in verse)
 * Mary Pettibone Poole – A Glass Eye at a Keyhole

Non-fiction

 * Crane Brinton – The Anatomy of Revolution
 * Hall Caine (died 1931) – Life of Christ
 * Cyril Connolly – Enemies of Promise
 * Geoffrey Faber – The Romance of a Bookshop 1904–1938
 * Robert Newton Flew – Jesus and His Church. A study of the idea of the Ecclesia in the New Testament
 * Edgar Innes Fripp (died 1931) – Shakespeare, Man and Artist
 * Elie Halévy – The Era of Tyrannies
 * Agnes Hunt – This Is My Life (autobiography of pioneer orthopedic nurse)
 * C. L. R. James – The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution
 * Claude Scudamore Jarvis – Desert and Delta. An account of modern Egypt
 * Jomo Kenyatta – Facing Mount Kenya
 * Anne Morrow Lindbergh – Listen! The Wind
 * Robert McAlmon – Being Geniuses Together, 1920–1930
 * Thomas Mann – The Coming Victory of Democracy
 * George Orwell – Homage to Catalonia
 * Nichita Smochină – Republica Moldovenească a Sovietelor (The Moldavian Republic of Soviets)
 * Derek A. Traversi – An Approach to Shakespeare
 * H. G. Wells – World Brain
 * Virginia Woolf – Three Guineas

Births

 * January 2 – Hans Herbjørnsrud, Norwegian short story writer (died 2023}}
 * January 5 – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (also known as James Ngigi), Kenyan novelist
 * January 6 – Mario Rodríguez Cobos ("Silo"), Argentine author and spiritualist (died 2010)
 * January 20 – Liz Calder, English publisher and editor
 * February 7 – Andrea Newman, English novelist and screenwriter (died 2019)
 * February 9 – Jovette Marchessault, French Canadian writer and artist (died 2012)
 * February 12
 * Judy Blume, American children's author
 * Tor Obrestad, Norwegian novelist, poet and documentary writer (died 2020)
 * February 22 – Ishmael Reed, American poet, essayist and novelist
 * March 1 – Michael Kurland, American author of sci-fi and detective fiction
 * March 14 – Eleanor Bron, English humorous writer and actress
 * March 24 – Ian Hamilton, English critic, biographer and poet (died 2001)
 * March 27 – Hansjörg Schneider, Swiss novelist (died 2016)
 * April 20 – Chiung Yao, Taiwanese romance novelist
 * April 25 – John Nagenda, Ugandan writer and sportsman (died 2023)
 * April 30 – Larry Niven, American sci-fi author
 * May 13 – Norma Klein, American author (died 1989)
 * May 15 – Nancy Garden, American author (died 2014)
 * May 16 – Marco Aurelio Denegri, Peruvian literature critic, television host and sexologist (died 2018)
 * May 25
 * Raymond Carver, American short-story writer and poet (died 1988)
 * Margaret Forster, English novelist and biographer (died 2016)
 * May 26 – Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, Russian novelist and playwright
 * June 5 – M. K. Wren (Martha Kay Renfroe), American novelist (died 2016)
 * June 16 – Joyce Carol Oates, American novelist
 * June 24 – Lawrence Block, American crime fiction writer
 * June 26 – Maria Velho da Costa, Portuguese writer (died 2020)
 * July 15 – Josephine Cox, English novelist (died 2020)
 * July 19
 * Nicholas Bethell, English historian and politician (died 2007)
 * Dom Moraes, Indian poet and columnist (died 2004)
 * Tom Raworth, English poet (died 2017)
 * Mary-Kay Wilmers, American-born editor
 * July 28 – Robert Hughes, Australian critic and historian (died 2012)
 * August 15 – Janusz Zajdel, Polish writer (died 1985)
 * August 21 – Mudrooroo (Colin Johnson), Australian novelist (died 2019)
 * August 30 – Dorota Terakowska, Polish writer and journalist, author of fantasy books for children and young adults (died 2004)
 * September 3 – Caryl Churchill, English dramatist
 * September 12 – Richard Booth, Welsh bookseller (died 2019)
 * September 15 – Charles L. Mee, American dramatist
 * September 18 – Poornachandra Tejaswi, Kannada writer (died 2007)
 * September 19 – Keorapetse Kgositsile, South African Poet Laureate (died 2018)
 * October 12 – Anne Perry (Juliet Marion Hulme), English historical novelist (died 2023)
 * October 13 – Hugo Young, English journalist (died 2003)
 * October 17 – Les Murray, Australian poet (died 2019)
 * October 19 – Allan Massie, Singapore-born Scottish writer
 * November 3 – Terrence McNally, American playwright (died 2020)
 * November 4 – Daniel Snowman, English non-fiction writer and historian
 * December 14 – Leonardo Boff (Genézio Darci Boff), Brazilian philosopher and theologian
 * December 21 – Frank Moorhouse, Australian journalist, author and screenwriter (died 2022)
 * December 31 – Basudeb Dasgupta, Bengali novelist (died 2005)
 * unknown date – Gabriel Ruhumbika, Tanzanian novelist

Deaths

 * January 4 – Paola Drigo, Italian writer (born 1876)
 * January 16 – Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay (Sarat Chandra Chattergee), Bengali novelist (born 1876)
 * January 19 – Branislav Nušić, Serbian novelist and dramatist (born 1864)
 * January 29 – Armando Palacio Valdés, Spanish novelist and critic (born 1853)
 * February 13 – Momčilo Nastasijević, Serbian poet, novelist and dramatist (born 1894)
 * March 6 – Eva Allen Alberti, American dramatics teacher (born 1856)
 * March 27 – Helen M. Winslow, American editor, author and publisher (born 1851)
 * March 31 – Willem Kloos, Dutch poet and critic (born 1859)
 * April 19 – Sir Henry Newbolt, English poet (born 1862)
 * April 21 – Lady Ottoline Morrell, English literary hostess (born 1873)
 * May 26 – James Forbes, Canadian American dramatist and screenwriter (born 1871)
 * June 9 – Ovid Densusianu, Romanian poet, philologist, and literary historian (born 1873)
 * June 26
 * James Weldon Johnson, American politician, poet and activist (born 1871)
 * E. V. Lucas, English essayist and biographer, 70
 * July 21 – Owen Wister, American Western fiction writer and historian (born 1860)
 * August 7 – Konstantin Stanislavski, Russian theatre director (born 1863)
 * August 26 – Millosh Gjergj Nikolla, Albanian poet and writer (tuberculosis, born 1911)
 * September 15 – Thomas Wolfe, American novelist (tuberculosis, born 1900)
 * October 3 – Olivia Shakespear, British novelist, playwright and patron of the arts (born 1863)
 * October 27 – Lascelles Abercrombie, English poet and literary critic (born 1881)
 * December 13 – Virginia Frazer Boyle, American author and poet (born 1863)
 * December 23 – Robert Herrick, American realist novelist (born 1868)
 * December 25 – Karel Čapek, Czech science fiction author and dramatist (pneumonia, born 1890)
 * December 27 – Osip Mandelstam, Russian poet and essayist (in detention, born 1891)

Awards

 * Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Noel Streatfeild, The Circus Is Coming
 * Hawthornden Prize – David Jones, In Parenthesis
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: C. S. Forester, A Ship of the Line and Flying Colours
 * James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Sir Edmund Chambers, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
 * Newbery Medal for children's literature: Kate Seredy, The White Stag
 * Newdigate prize: Michael Thwaites
 * Nobel Prize in literature: Pearl S. Buck
 * Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Thornton Wilder, Our Town
 * Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Marya Zaturenska, Cold Morning Sky
 * Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: John Phillips Marquand, The Late George Apley