1938 in literature

The year 1938 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• January - The trilogy U.S.A., by John Dos Passos, is published, containing his three novels The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936).
• 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.
• October 30 - Orson Welles' radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds 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 in the following year he will write the first short story in his later characteristic style.
• Samuel Beckett's first completed novel Murphy is published.
• First complete performance of both parts of Goethe's Faust (1808/32), unabridged, at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland.
• Gay American writer and composer Paul Bowles marries lesbian American writer Jane Auer.
• Avant-garde musician and theoretician Pierre Schaeffer begins his writing career as an essayist for a number of French musical journals.

New prose fiction

• Margery Allingham - The Fashion in Shrouds
• Eric Ambler
  • Cause for Alarm
  • Epitaph for a Spy
• Vladimir Bartol - Alamut
• Elizabeth Bowen - The Death of the Heart
• Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan and the Forbidden City
• Taylor Caldwell - Dynasty of Death
• John Dickson Carr
  • The Four False Weapons, Being the Return of Bencolin
  • To Wake the Dead
  • The Crooked Hinge
  • The Judas Window (as by Carter Dickson)
  • Death in Five Boxes (as by Carter Dickson)
• Peter Cheyney - Can Ladies Kill?
• Agatha Christie
  • Hercule Poirot's Christmas
  • Appointment with Death
• Albert Cohen - Nailcruncher
• René Daumal - A Night of Serious Drinking
• John Dos Passos - U.S.A. trilogy
• Daphne du Maurier - Rebecca
• Lawrence Durrell - The Black Book
• Mircea Eliade - Marriage in Heaven
• William Faulkner - The Unvanquished
• Rachel Field - All This and Heaven Too
• Julien Gracq - The Castle of Argol
• Robert Graves - Count Belisarius
• Graham Greene - Brighton Rock
• Xavier Herbert - Capricornia
• Eric Knight - Lassie Come-Home
• Emilio Lussu - Un anno sull'altopiano
• C. S. Lewis - Out of the Silent Planet
• Norman Lindsay - Age of Consent
• Henry Miller - Tropic of Capricorn
• Vladimir Nabokov
  • The Gift
  • Invitation to a Beheading
• Kate O'Brien - Pray for the Wanderer
• John O'Hara - Hope of Heaven
• Ellery Queen
  • The Devil to Pay
  • The Four of Hearts
• Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - The Yearling
• Clayton Rawson - Death from a Top Hat
• Ayn Rand - Anthem
• Joseph Roth - The Emperor's Tomb
• Jean-Paul Sartre - La Nausée
• Georges Simenon - L'Homme qui regardait passer les trains (The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By)
• Kate Seredy - The White Stag
• Esphyr Slobodkina - Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business
• John Steinbeck - The Long Valley
• Rex Stout - Too Many Cooks
• 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
• Evelyn Waugh - Scoop
• T. H. White - The Sword in the Stone
• Gale Wilhelm - Torchlight to Valhalla
• Virginia Woolf - Three Guineas

New drama

• Jean Anouilh - Thieves' Carnival (Le Bal des Voleurs)
• Robert Ardrey - Casey Jones
• Patrick Hamilton - Gas Light
• Kaj Munk - Han sidder ved Smeltediglen
• J. B. Priestley - When We Are Married
• Robert E. Sherwood - Abe Lincoln in Illinois
• Dodie Smith - Dear Octopus
• Rodolfo Usigli - El gesticulador
• Theodore Ward - Big White Fog
• Thornton Wilder - Our Town
• Emlyn Williams - The Corn is Green

Poetry

• Alfred Kreymborg - The Planets: A Modern Allegory (radio play in verse)

Non-fiction

• Hall Caine (posthumous) - Life of Christ
• Cyril Connolly - Enemies of Promise
• Geoffrey Faber - The Romance of a Bookshop 1904-1938
• Elie Halévy - The Era of Tyrannies
• Jomo Kenyatta - Facing Mount Kenya
• Robert McAlmon - Being Geniuses Together, 1920-1930
• Thomas Mann - The Coming Victory of Democracy
• George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia

Births

• January 5 – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (also known as James Ngigi), Kenyan novelist
• February 12
  • Judy Blume, American children's author
  • Tor Obrestad, Norwegian novelist, poet and documentary writer
• 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)
• April 29 – Larry Niven, American sci-fi author
• May 13 – Norma Klein, American author (died 1989)
• May 25 – Raymond Carver, American short-story writer and poet (died 1988)
• May 26 – Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, Russian novelist and playwright
• June 16 – Joyce Carol Oates, American novelist
• June 24 – Lawrence Block, American crime writer
• July 19
  • Nicholas Bethell, English historian and politician (died 2007)
  • Dom Moraes, Indian poet and columnist (died 2004)
  • Tom Raworth, English poet
• August 21 – Mudrooroo (Colin Johnson), Australian novelist
• September 3 – Caryl Churchill, English dramatist
• September 15 – Charles L. Mee, American dramatist
• October 12 – Anne Perry (Juliet Marion Hulme), English historical novelist
• October 13 – Hugo Young, English journalist (died 2003)
• October 17 – Les Murray, Australian poet
• October 19 – Allan Massie, Singapore-born Scottish writer
• December 14 – Leonardo Boff (Genézio Darci Boff), Brazilian philosopher and theologian
• December 31 – Basudeb Dasgupta, Bengali novelist (died 2005)
• Unknown dates
  • M. K. Wren (Martha Kay Renfroe), American novelist
  • Gabriel Ruhumbika, Tanzanian novelist

Deaths

• January 4 - Paola Drigo, Italian writer, 62
• January 16 - Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Bengali novelist, 61
• January 19 - Branislav Nušić, Serbian novelist and dramatist, 63
• January 29 - Armando Palacio Valdés, Spanish novelist and critic, 84
• February 13 - Momčilo Nastasijević, Serbian poet, novelist and dramatist, 43
• March 1 - Gabriele D'Annunzio, Italian poet and novelist, 74
• April 19 - Sir Henry Newbolt, English poet, 75
• April 21 - Lady Ottoline Morrell, English literary hostess, 64
• May 26 - James Forbes, Canadian American dramatist and screenwriter, 66
• June 26
  • James Weldon Johnson, American politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights activist, 67
  • E. V. Lucas, English essayist and biographer, 70
• August 7 - Konstantin Stanislavski, Russian theatre director, 75
• August 26 - Millosh Gjergj Nikolla, Albanian poet and writer, 26 (tuberculosis)
• September 15 - Thomas Wolfe, American novelist, 37 (tuberculosis)
• October 27 - Lascelles Abercrombie, English poet and literary critic, 57
• December 23 - Robert Herrick, American realist novelist, 70
• December 25 - Karel Čapek, Czech science fiction author and dramatist, 48 (double pneumonia)

Awards

• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Noel Streatfeild, The Circus Is Coming
• Hawthornden Prize - David Jones for 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 for 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

References