1946 in literature

• January – The Penguin Classics imprint is launched in the U.K. under the editorship of E. V. Rieu, whose translation of the Odyssey is the first of the books published,[1] and will be the country's best-selling book over the next decade.[2]
• January 5 – The Estonian writer Jaan Kross is arrested and imprisoned by the occupying Soviet authorities.
• February – The poet Ezra Pound, brought back to the United States on treason charges, is found unfit to face trial due to insanity and sent to St. Elizabeths Hospital, Washington, D.C., where he remains for 12 years.
• May 20 – The English poet W. H. Auden becomes a United States citizen.[3]
• May 22 – George Orwell leaves London to spend much of the next 18 months on the Scottish island of Jura, working on his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (known at an earlier stage of composition as The Last Man in Europe). This year his Animal Farm becomes book of the year in the United States.
• August 18 – The Assamese poet Amulya Barua is killed aged 24 in communal violence while studying at the University of Calcutta. His only collection of poems, Achina (The Stranger), is published posthumously.
• October 1 – The English première of J. B. Priestley's drama An Inspector Calls (set in 1912) shows at the New Theatre, London. It stars Ralph Richardson.[4]
• October 9 – The Broadway première of Eugene O'Neill's drama The Iceman Cometh, set in 1912, is held at the Martin Beck Theatre, New York City.
• October 10 – Die Chinesische Mauer by Swiss writer Max Frisch, receives its stage première.[5]
• November 7 – Walker Percy, a U.S. writer of philosophical novels, marries Mary Bernice Townsend.
• November 8 – The English novelist and diarist Christopher Isherwood becomes a U.S. citizen.
• December 18
  • Brendan Behan is released from internment in the Republic of Ireland under an amnesty.
  • Damon Runyon's ashes are scattered over New York City from an airplane piloted by Eddie Rickenbacker.
• December 23 – Giovannino Guareschi publishes the first story about the priest Don Camillo in his magazine Candido.
• December 26 – David Lean's film of Great Expectations is released in England.
• unknown dates
  • The publisher August Aimé Balkema produces his first book in South Africa, Vyjtig Gedigte by the poet C. Louis Leipoldt.[6]
  • The American writer and theologian Frederick Buechner resumes his B.A. degree course at Princeton University after war service.

• January 4 – Lisa Appignanesi, Polish-born author and academic
• January 21 – Gretel Ehrlich, American travel writer, poet and essayist
• February 7 – Brian Patten, English poet
• February 25 – Franz Xaver Kroetz, German dramatist
• March 1 – Jim Crace, English author
• March 5 – Mem Fox (Merrion Frances Partridge), Australian children's writer
• April 2 – Sue Townsend, English comic novelist and playwright (died 2014)
• April 29 – Humphrey Carpenter, English biographer, children's fiction writer and radio broadcaster (died 2005)
• May 8 – Ruth Padel, English poet and author
• May 11 – Valerie Grove, English journalist and author
• May 12 – L. Neil Smith, American author and activist
• June 28 – John Birtwhistle, English poet and librettist
• July 22 – Ryoki Inoue, born José Carlos Ryoki de Alpoim Inoue, prolific Brazilian novelist
• July 26 – Joel Mokyr, Israeli economic historian
• July 28 – Fahmida Riaz, Pakistani writer
• August 1 – Paul Torday, English novelist (died 2013)
• August 2 – James Howe, American journalist and author of juvenile fiction
• August 29 – Leona Gom, Canadian poet and novelist
• September 12 – Neil Lyndon, English journalist and author of No More Sex War: The Failures of Feminism[7]
• September 26 – Andrea Dworkin, American writer and activist (died 2005)
• October 1 – Tim O'Brien, American novelist
• October 4 - Susan Sarandon American actress
• October 19 - Philip Pullman, English author
• October 20 – Elfriede Jelinek, Austrian novelist and Nobel laureate
• October 28 – Sharon Thesen, Canadian poet
• November 7 – Diane Francis, Canadian journalist and author
• November 18 – Alan Dean Foster, American science fiction author
• December 2 – Ibrahim Abdel Meguid, Egyptian novelist
• December 4 – Maria Antònia Oliver Cabrer, Majorca-born Spanish Catalan fiction writer
• December 11 – Ellen Meloy, American nature writer (died 2004)

Uncertain date

• Sarah Harrison, English novelist and children's writer

• January 6 – Dion Fortune, British occultist, Christian Qabalist, ceremonial magician and novelist (born 1890)
• February 11 – John Langalibalele Dube, South African Zulu writer (born 1871)
• March 1 – Adriana Porter, Canadian Wiccan poet (born 1857)
• March 19 – Catherine Carswell, Scottish novelist and biographer (born 1879)
• March 20 – Henry Handel Richardson (Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson), Australian novelist (born 1870)
• April 1 – Edward Sheldon, American dramatist (born 1886)
• April 11 – Dem. Theodorescu, Romanian novelist and journalist (born 1888)
• May 19 – Booth Tarkington, American novelist and dramatist (born 1869)
• May 20 – Jane Findlater, Scottish novelist (born 1866)
• May 25 – Ernest Rhys, English writer and book series editor of Welsh extraction (born 1859)
• June 6 – Gerhart Hauptmann, German dramatist, novelist and poet, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (born 1862)
• July 8 – Orrick Glenday Johns, American poet and playwright (born 1887)
• July 22 – Edward Sperling, Russian-born American humorist (killed by bomb, born 1889)
• July 27 – Gertrude Stein, American novelist, poet and dramatist (born 1874)[8]
• July 30 – Nikolai Alexandrovich Morozov, Russian poet and revolutionary (born 1854)
• August 13 – H. G. Wells, English novelist (born 1866)[9]
• August 18 – Marion Angus, Scottish poet in Braid Scots and English (born 1865)
• August 31 – Harley Granville-Barker, English actor, dramatist and critic (born 1877)
• September 9 – Violet Jacob, Scottish historical novelist and poet (born 1863)
• September 26 – William Strunk, Jr., American professor of English (born 1869)
• November 14 – May Sinclair, English novelist (born 1863)[10]
• December 10 – Damon Runyon, American short-story writer (born 1880)[11]
• December 17 – Constance Garnett, English translator of Russian literature (born 1861)
• December 23 – Ellen Marriage, English translator of Balzac (born 1865)

• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Elizabeth Goudge, The Little White Horse
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Oliver Onions, Poor Man's Tapestry
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Richard Aldington, Wellington
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Lois Lenski, Strawberry Girl
• Nobel Prize for literature: Hermann Hesse
• Premio Nadal: José María Gironella, Un hombre
• Prix Goncourt: Jean-Jacques Gautier, Histoire d'un fait divers
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Russel Crouse, Howard Lindsay, State of the Union
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: no award given