# 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.

## New books
### 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
* Dorothy Bowers – Postscript to Poison
* 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
* Cyril Hare – Death Is No Sportsman
* 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 [cs] – 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
* Max Catto – They Walk Alone
* 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
* Gordon Sherry – The Bare Idea
* 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
* Johan Huizinga – Homo Ludens
* 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 (died 2024)
* 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