1950 in literature

• January 19 – Isaac Asimov's first full-length novel, Pebble in the Sky, is published in the United States by Doubleday.
• January 26 – For the film noir Gun Crazy, released on this day in the United States, co-writer Dalton Trumbo is billed as Millard Kaufman, due to the former's inclusion on the Hollywood blacklist. This year Trumbo serves 11 months in prison for Contempt of Congress, in the federal penitentiary in Ashland, Kentucky.
• February – Jack Kerouac has his first novel, The Town and the City, published in the United States.
• April 8 – J. D. Salinger's wartime short story "For Esmé — with Love and Squalor" is published in The New Yorker.
• May 11 – Eugène Ionesco's first play, The Bald Soprano is first performed, in Paris.
• September 10 – George Bernard Shaw is taken to hospital after fracturing a hip falling out of a tree he was pruning.[1] He is released from hospital a few weeks later after a successful operation, but suffers kidney failure and dies at his home, Shaw's Corner (Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire, England), aged 94.
• October – Galaxy Science Fiction magazine launches in the United States.
• October 2 – The daily comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz, makes its debut in nine United States newspapers.
• October 16 – C. S. Lewis's novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, first of the seven-book The Chronicles of Narnia, is published in the UK.[2]

Uncertain dates

• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is sent to a "special camp" for political prisoners in Kazakhstan.
• The 13th–14th century Japanese epic poem The Tale of the Heike (平家物語) is retold in modern prose by the historical novelist Eiji Yoshikawa as Shin Heike monogatari (New Tale of the Heike) and published in Asahi Weekly.
• Blackwell's opens the first specialist children's bookshop, in Broad Street, Oxford (England).[3]
• Adrian Bell begins his Countryman's Notebook column in the Eastern Daily Press.

• January 17 – Luis López Nieves, Puerto Rican writer
• January 20 – Edward Hirsch, American poet
• January 22 – Paul Bew, Irish historian and academic
• January 24 – Benjamin Urrutia, Ecuadorian author and scholar
• January 25 – Gloria Naylor, African-American novelist and academic
• February 11 – Mauri Kunnas, Finnish children’s author
• February 20 – Jean-Paul Dubois, French novelist and journalist
• February 26 – Adam Cornford, English poet and essayist
• March 23 – Ahdaf Soueif, Egyptian novelist
• April 20 – Steve Erickson, American novelist
• June 21 – Anne Carson, Canadian poet and scholar
• June 25 – Barbara Gowdy, Canadian novelist
• July 3 – Zhang Kangkang (张抗抗), Chinese writer
• July 22 – Susan Eloise Hinton, American novelist
• August 9 – Nicole Tourneur, French novelist (died 2011)
• August 26 – Carl Deuker, American author
• September 7 – Peggy Noonan, American columnist, political writer
• September 16 – Henry Louis Gates, American literary critic
• September 20 – James Blaylock, American fantasy author
• October 10 – Nora Roberts, American novelist
• October 12 – Edward Bloor, American novelist
• October 17 – David Adams Richards, Canadian author
• October 18 – Wendy Wasserstein, American playwright (died 2006)
• October 27 – Fran Lebowitz, American writer
• November 3 – Massimo Mongai, Italian author
• November 4 – Charles Frazier, American novelist
• December 18 – Leonard Maltin, American film critic and historian
• December 20 – Sheenagh Pugh, English-born poet and novelist
• December 30 – Timothy Mo, Hong Kong British novelist

Uncertain dates

• Bandi, North Korean fiction writer
• Candace Robb, English historical novelist

• January 5 – Basil Williams, English historian (born 1867)
• January 21 – George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), English novelist (tuberculosis, born 1903)[5]
• February 7 – D. K. Broster, English historical novelist (born 1877)
• February 13 – Rafael Sabatini, Italian-born English-language novelist (born 1875)
• February 24 – Irving Bacheller, American journalist and novelist (born 1859)
• March 5 – Edgar Lee Masters, American poet (born 1868)
• March 11 – Heinrich Mann, German novelist (born 1871)
• March 19 – Edgar Rice Burroughs, American author (born 1875)
• March 22 – Emmanuel Mounier, French philosopher, journalist and theologian (born 1905)
• April 1 – F. O. Matthiessen, American historian and literary critic (born 1902)
• April 8 – Albert Ehrenstein, Austrian Expressionist poet (born 1886)
• April 27 – H. Bonciu, Romanian novelist, poet and translator (cancer, born 1893)
• May 6 – Agnes Smedley, American journalist and writer (born 1892)
• May 10 – Belle da Costa Greene, American librarian (born 1883)
• May 11 – Alfred O. Andersson, English-born American journalist and newspaper publisher (born 1874)
• June 4 – George Cecil Ives, German-born English poet, writer and reformer (born 1867)
• June 14 – Katharine Glasier, English writer and socialist (born 1867)
• July 7 – Guy Gilpatric, American short story writer (suicide, born 1896)
• August 27 – Cesare Pavese, Italian poet and novelist (born 1908)
• September 6 – Olaf Stapledon, English philosopher and science fiction writer (heart attack, born 1886)
• September 18 – Henrik Rytter, Norwegian dramatist, lyricist and translator (born 1887)
• October 9 – Nicolai Hartmann, German-Latvian philosopher (born 1882)
• October 19 – Edna St. Vincent Millay, American poet (heart attack, born 1892)
• October 31 – Herbert Kelly, English religious writer and cleric (born 1860)
• November 2 – George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist, critic and activist (born 1856)
• November 25 – Johannes V. Jensen, Danish author (born 1873)
• December 28 – Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, Soviet short-story writer (born 1887)
• December 31 – Xavier Villaurrutia, Mexican poet and dramatist (born 1903)

Uncertain dates

• Edith Escombe, English fiction writer and essayist (born 1866)
• Cezaro Rossetti, Scottish-born Esperanto writer (born 1901)
• Helen Rowland, American journalist and humorist (born 1875)
• Cuthbert Whitaker, English yearbook editor (born 1873)

• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Elfrida Vipont, The Lark on the Wing
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Robert Henriques, Through the Valley
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Cecil Woodham-Smith, Florence Nightingale
• Mystery Writer Of Japan – Kazuo Shimada, Shakai-bu Kisha ("City Reporter")
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Marguerite de Angeli, The Door in the Wall
• Newdigate prize: John Bayley
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Bertrand Russell
• Premio Nadal: Elena Quiroga, Viento del norte
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Joshua Logan, South Pacific
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: A. B. Guthrie, Jr., The Way West
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Gwendolyn Brooks, Annie Allen (first African American winner)

• Horton Foote's drama The Young Man from Atlanta (1995) is set in this year.
• Athol Fugard's drama "Master Harold"...and the Boys (1982) is set in this year.
• Anthony Horowitz's James Bond novel Forever and a Day (2018) is set in this year.
• Lu Shi'e's novel Xin Zhongguo (1910) is set in this year.
• Mario Puzo's novel The Sicilian (1984) is set in this year.
• Nevil Shute's novel The Far Country (1952) is set in this year.
• Yukio Mishima's novel The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (1956) is based on events of this year.