1940 in literature

See also: 1939 in literature, other events of 1940, 1941 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• June 4 - The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers is published.

New books

• The Corinthian – Georgette Heyer
• Counter-Clockwise - John M. Lee
• Daniel Boone - James Daugherty
• Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler
• The Don Flows Home to the Sea - Mikhail Sholokov
• The Earth is the Lord's - Taylor Caldwell
• Farewell, My Lovely - Raymond Chandler
• The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
• Horton Hatches the Egg - Dr. Seuss
• King's Row - Henry Bellamann
• Last Train Out - E. Phillipe Oppenheim
• The Man Who Loved Children - Christina Stead
• A Mathematician's Apology - G. H. Hardy
• Native Son - Richard Wright
• The Ox-bow Incident - Walter Clark
• Pal Joey - John O'Hara
• Pat the Bunny - Dorothy Kunhardt
• Sapphira And The Slave - Willa Cather
• Trouble in July - Erskine Caldwell
• When the Whippoorwill - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Births

• February 4 - George Romero, horror movie writer, producer, director
• February 29 - Edward Frederick Benson, American writer
• March 16 - Bernardo Bertolucci, Italian writer and film director
• May 7 - Angela Carter, English magical realist author

Deaths

• March 10 - Mikhaïl Boulgakov, Russian writer
• March 16 - Selma Lagerlöf, writer
• December 21 - F Scott Fitzgerald
• December 22 - Nathanael West

Awards

• Newbery Medal for children's literature: James Daugherty , Daniel Boone
• Nobel Prize for literature: not awarded
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: William Saroyan, The Time of Your Life
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Mark Van Doren: Collected Poems
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath