2020 in literature

• April 14 – Bookshops are among the first few premises permitted to reopen on relaxation of restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.[1]
• May 26–July 10 – J. K. Rowling releases her new fairy tale The Ickabog in free online instalments during restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.[2]
• June 25 – Louisa May Alcott's unfinished "Aunt Nellie's Story" (c.1849) is first published, in The Strand Magazine.[3]
• July 31 – 2020 Booker Prize longlisted (later shortlisted) author Tsitsi Dangarembga is arrested in Zimbabwe as part of a government crackdown ahead of anti-corruption protests.[4]
• August – The Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, purchases Das Große Stammbuch, an album amicorum compiled by diplomat Philipp Hainhofer, which the library's patron Augustus the Younger, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, tried but failed to acquire following Hainhofer's death in 1647.[5]
• October 13 – A first issue first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone sells at auction in the UK for £60,000[6] and a copy of Isaac Newton's The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in the 1729 English translation (the second to sell in recent weeks) for £24,000.[7]
• October 14 – A Shakespeare First Folio sells at auction in New York City for $9.98M (£7.6M) (50% more than the previous copy auctioned in 2001).[8]
• November 25 – Penguin Random House agrees to acquire rival publisher Simon & Schuster from ViacomCBS for US$2.175 billion.[9]

Dates after each title indicate U.S. publication, unless otherwise indicated.

• January 7 – Elizabeth Wurtzel, 52, American author (Prozac Nation) (born 1967)[17]
• January 9 – Chukwuemeka Ike, 88, Nigerian writer (born 1931)[18]
• January 12 – Roger Scruton, 75, English philosopher and writer (born 1944)[19]
• January 16 – Christopher Tolkien, 95, British academic and editor (born 1924)[20]
• January 17 – Charles Carrère, 91, Senegalese poet.[21]
• January 23 – Armando Uribe, 86, Chilean writer (winner of the National Prize for Literature 2004) (born 1933)[22]
• January 30 – Jörn Donner, 86, Finland-Swedish writer, film director and politician (born 1933).[23]
• January 31 – Mary Higgins Clark, 92, American best-selling author, known as the Queen of Suspense (born 1927)[24]
• February 3 – George Steiner, 90, French-American literary critic and essayist (After Babel) (born 1929)[25]
• February 4 – Kamau Brathwaite, 89, Barbadian poet and academic (born 1930)[26]
• February 12 – Christie Blatchford, 68, Canadian newspaper columnist, journalist, writer and broadcaster (born 1951)[27]
• February 17 – Charles Portis, 86, American author (True Grit, Norwood, Gringos) (born 1933)[28]
• February 22 – Kiki Dimoula, 88, Greek poet (born 1931)[29]
• February 24 – Clive Cussler, 88, American adventure novelist (Raise the Titanic!, Sahara) and underwater explorer, founder of the NUMA (born 1931)[30]
• March 13 – Yang Mu, 79, Taiwanese poet and essayist (born 1940)[31]
• March 24 – Terrence McNally, 81, American playwright, screenwriter, and librettist (born 1938)[32]
• March 30 – Tomie dePaola, American author and illustrator (born 1934)[33]
• April 1 – Bruce Dawe, 90, Australian poet (born 1930)[34]
• April 2 – Patricia Bosworth, 86, American biographer, journalist, and memoirist (born 1933)[35]
• April 6 – Jean Little, 88, Canadian children's fiction author (born 1932)[36]
• April 16 – Luis Sepúlveda, 70, Chilean author and journalist (The Old Man Who Read Love Novels, The Story of A Seagull and The Cat Who Taught Her To Fly) (born 1949)[37]
• April 25 – Per Olov Enquist, 85, Swedish author (The Visit of the Royal Physician) (born 1934)[38]
• April 29 – Yahya Hassan, Danish poet and political activist (born 1995)[39]
• May 4 – Michael McClure, 87, American poet and writer (born 1932)
• May 12 – Carolyn Reidy, 71, American publisher, CEO of Simon & Schuster, heart attack (born 1949)
• May 27 – Larry Kramer, 84, American playwright (The Normal Heart) and LGBT rights activist (born 1935)
• June 2 – Hiber Conteris, 86, Uruguayan literary critic, writer and playwright (born 1933)
• June 28 – Rudolfo Anaya, 82, American Chicano author (born 1937)[40]
• July 7 – Elizabeth Harrower, 92, Australian novelist (born 1928)
• August 5 – Pete Hamill, 85, American journalist and author (born 1935)
• August 10 – Jacobo Langsner, 93, Transylvanian-born Uruguayan screenwriter and playwright (born 1927)
• August 24 – Gail Sheehy, 83, American author (Hillary's Choice) (born 1936)
• September 23 – Sir Harold Evans, 92, English-born American author (The American Century), newspaper editor and journalist (The Sunday Times, The Week, The Guardian) (born 1928)
• September 23 – Emyr Humphreys, 101, Welsh-language writer (born 1919)[41]
• October 1 – Derek Mahon, 78, Irish poet and journalist (born 1941)[42]
• October 25 – Diane Di Prima, 86, American poet (born 1934)[43]
• November 6
  • Nathan Zach, 89, Israeli poet[44]
  • Mikhail Zhvanetsky, 86, Soviet and Russian writer and satirist[45]
• November 29 – Ben Bova, 88, American writer and magazine editor (Analog), Hugo Award winner (born 1932)[46]
• December 1 – Miguel Algarín, 79, Puerto Rican writer, co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (born 1941)[47]
• December 3 – Alison Lurie, 94, American novelist (Foreign Affairs, The War Between the Tates), Pulitzer Prize winner (born 1926)[48]
• December 12 – John le Carré, 89, English author (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Night Manager, The Little Drummer Girl) (born 1931)[49]

The following list is arranged alphabetically: