1930 in literature

• January 6 – An early literary character-licencing agreement is signed by A. A. Milne, giving Stephen Slesinger U.S. and Canadian merchandising rights to the Winnie-the-Pooh works.
• February – The Censorship of Publications Board begins to function in the Irish Free State. Among the first 13 books banned (announced in May) are Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley, The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall and several on sex and marriage by Margaret Sanger and Marie Stopes.[1]
• February 23 – Erich Maria Remarque's anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front is banned in Thuringian schools by Education Minister Wilhelm Frick.[2]
• March 19 – Paul Robeson plays the title role of Othello at the Savoy Theatre, London, with Peggy Ashcroft as Desdemona.[3]
• May 6 – The Collins Crime Club is launched as a crime fiction imprint by the U.K. firm William Collins.
• May 10 – John Masefield becomes Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom.[4]
• July 14 – Luigi Pirandello's The Man with the Flower in His Mouth becomes the first broadcast television drama, by the BBC in England, directed by Val Gielgud.[5]
• July 19 – Georges Simenon's Detective Inspector Jules Maigret makes a first appearance in print, under Simenon's own name after he abandons pseudonyms, in the novel Pietr-le-Letton (The Strange Case of Peter the Lett), which begins serialization in the French weekly magazine Ric et Rac published by Fayard.[6] It will appear in book form in 1931 as the fifth of 75 novels (and 28 short stories) in which Simenon features the pipe-smoking Paris detective.
• September 11 – Agatha Christie marries archaeologist Max Mallowan in Edinburgh.
• September 24 – The first production of Noël Coward's comedy Private Lives opens at the Phoenix Theatre (London), featuring Coward, Gertrude Lawrence and Laurence Olivier in the cast.[5]
• September 29 – The English satirical novelist Evelyn Waugh joins the Catholic Church.
• October 13 – Agatha Christie's The Murder at the Vicarage, the first full-length novel to feature her amateur detective Miss Marple, appears in the U.K. in the Collins Crime Club series, after serialization in the United States.
• November 5 – The American novelist Sinclair Lewis is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• December 10 – The first performance of Bertolt Brecht's Lehrstück The Decision (Die Maßnahme), written in collaboration with Slatan Dudow and the composer Hanns Eisler, occurs at the Großes Schauspielhaus in Berlin, with Ernst Busch as lead.

Uncertain dates

• John Langalibalele Dube publishes the historical novella Insila kaShaka, the first work of fiction in the Zulu language.
• Franz Kafka's novel The Castle (1926) is first translated into English, by Willa and Edwin Muir.

• January 1 – Adunis (Ali Ahmad Said Esber), Syrian-born poet
• January 20 – Blair Lent, American children's author and illustrator (died 2009)
• January 23 – Derek Walcott, Saint Lucian poet and playwright (died 2017)
• February 17 – Ruth Rendell (Ruth Barbara Grasemann), English detective and mystery novel writer (died 2015)
• February 18 – Gahan Wilson, American author and illustrator (died 2019)
• February 22 – Edward D. Hoch, American detective fiction writer (died 2008)
• February 23 – Paul West, English-born American novelist, poet and essayist (died 2015)[9]
• March 8 – Douglas Hurd, English politician and novelist
• March 26 – Gregory Corso, American poet (died 2001)
• April 16 – Carol Bly, American teacher, author of short stories, essays and nonfiction (died 2007)
• May 3 – Juan Gelman, Argentine poet (died 2014)
• May 13 – José Jiménez Lozano, Spanish novelist (died 2020)
• May 15 – Grace Ogot, Kenyan author (died 2015)
• May 21 – Stanley Wells, English Shakespearean scholar
• June 23 – Anthony Thwaite, English poet
• June 28 – Maureen Howard, American writer, editor and lecturer
• July 6 – Gloria Skurzynski, American author
• July 11 – Harold Bloom, American literary critic (died 2019)
• July 13 – Sam Greenlee, African American author (died 2014)
• July 15 – Jacques Derrida, French literary critic (died 2004)
• August 9 – Carmen Balcells, Spanish literary agent (died 2015)
• August 17 – Ted Hughes, English poet laureate (died 1998)
• August 25 – Peter Trower, Canadian poet and novelist (died 2017)
• August 27 – Erzsébet Galgóczi, Hungarian novelist, playwright and screenwriter (died 1989)
• September 25 – Shel Silverstein, American poet (died 1999)
• September 29 – Colin Dexter, English detective fiction writer (died 2017)
• October 2 – Antonio Gala, Spanish poet, playwright and novelist
• October 10 – Harold Pinter, English dramatist (died 2008)
• October 18 – Esther Hautzig, Polish-born American autobiographer (died 2009)
• October 24 – Elaine Feinstein, English poet, novelist and literary biographer (died 2019)
• October 26 – Catherine Obianuju Acholonu, Nigerian researcher and poet (died 2014)
• November 1 – A. R. Gurney, American dramatist (died 2017)
• November 5 – Clifford Irving, American literary forger
• November 12 – Irma Chilton, Welsh children's writer in Welsh and English (died 1990)
• November 16 – Chinua Achebe, Nigerian writer, academic and literary critic (died 2013)
• November 18 – J. G. Ballard, English novelist and essayist (died 2009)
• November 20 – Bai Hua, Chinese poet, dramatist and novelist (died 2019)
• November 27 – Rex Shelley, Singaporean author (died 2009)
• December 2 – Jon Silkin, English poet (died 1997)

• January 16 – Johannes Gilhoff, German writer (born 1861)
• February 27
  • George Haven Putnam, American author and publisher (born 1844)
  • Joseph Wright, English philologist and lexicographer (born 1855)
• February 28 – Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff, Scottish writer and translator (born 1889)
• March 2 – D. H. Lawrence, English novelist and poet (born 1885)
• March 12 – Alois Jirásek, Czech novelist and dramatist (born 1851)
• April 10 – Alfred Williams, English poet and steam-hammer operator (born 1877)
• April 14
  • Sigurd Ibsen, Norwegian politician and writer (born 1859)
  • Vladimir Mayakovsky, Russian poet (born 1893)
• April 21 – Robert Bridges, English poet and Poet Laureate (born 1844)
• April 22 – Jeppe Aakjær, Danish poet and novelist (born 1866)
• April 29 – Maria Polydouri, Greek poet (born 1902)
• May 15 – William John Locke, British Guiana-born English novelist and playwright (born 1863)
• May 16 – Florence Bell, English writer and playwright (born 1851)
• May 17 – Herbert Croly, American political writer (born 1869)
• June 9
  • Arthur St. John Adcock, English novelist and poet (born 1864)
  • Thomas Herbert Warren, English scholar and poet (born 1853)
• June 23 – Israel Gollancz, English Shakespeare scholar (born 1864)
• July 7 – Arthur Conan Doyle, Scottish writer of crime fiction (born 1859)
• August 23 – Lucien Wolf, English journalist and historian (born 1857)
• August 29 – William Archibald Spooner, English academic and instigator of spoonerisms (born 1844)
• September 4 – Vladimir Arsenyev, Russian travel writer and explorer (born 1872)
• September 5 – Georges de Porto-Riche, French novelist and dramatist (born 1849)
• September 25 – Arthur Way, English-born Australian classicist and translator (born 1847)
• September
  • Thomas Nicoll Hepburn (Gabriel Setoun), Scottish writer and poet (born 1861)
  • Karam Singh, Sikh historian (born 1884)
• November 21 – Jean-Marie-Raphaël Le Jeune, Canadian writer, linguist and Catholic priest (born 1855)
• December 22 – Neil Munro (Hugh Foulis), Scottish humorist, novelist and critic (born 1863)

Uncertain dates

• Roy Horniman, English novelist and playwright (born 1874)
• Iso Mutsu (睦磯, Gertrude Ethel Passingham), English-born Japanese travel writer (born 1867)

• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: E. H. Young, Miss Mole
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Francis Yeats-Brown, Lives of a Bengal Lancer
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Rachel Field, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years
• Nobel Prize in Literature: Sinclair Lewis
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Marc Connelly, The Green Pastures
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Conrad Aiken, Selected Poems
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Oliver La Farge, Laughing Boy