1961 in literature

• January 24 – The American dramatist Arthur Miller and the film star Marilyn Monroe are granted a divorce in Mexico on grounds of incompatibility.[1]
• February – Sylvia Plath suffers a miscarriage. Several of her poems, including "Parliament Hill Fields", address the event.[2]
• March 15 – Hugh Wheeler's comedy Big Fish, Little Fish opens at the ANTA Theater in New York City, directed by Sir John Gielgud. It is one of the early Broadway plays to explore frankly the issue of male homosexuality.[3]
• March 20 – The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, becomes the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and its company the Royal Shakespeare Company, with Peter Hall as director.[4]
• May – Grove Press publishes Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer in the United States 27 years after its original publication in France. The book leads to one of many obscenity trials (Grove Press, Inc., v. Gerstein) that test American laws on pornography in the 1960s.
• August 18 – The British magazine Tribune publishes a letter from playwright John Osborne beginning "Damn You, England."
• September 8 – Publication of the science fiction novel series Perry Rhodan, der Erbe des Universums, originally authored by K. H. Scheer and Walter Ernsting, is begun by Arthur Moewig Verlag in Germany in Romanhefte (partwork) format. It is then published every week, attaining more than 2880 issues and around two billion total copies sold worldwide by the end of 2016.
• September 14 – Novelist William Golding, having resigned a teaching post at Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury, sets off for the academic year 1961/1962 to teach at Hollins College, Virginia, United States.[5]
• November 10 – Joseph Heller's satirical novel Catch-22 is first put on sale by Simon & Schuster in the United States, after favorable advance reviews in October. Heller has been working on the book since 1953, based on his experiences as a bombardier during World War II. Its title, which becomes a phrase referring to a no-win situation, had previously been Catch-18.[6][7]

Uncertain dates

• Richard Booth opens a second-hand store in the future "bookshop town" of Hay-on-Wye on the English border with Wales.
• First English production of Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.
• The British bookseller WHSmith closes the last of its in-store circulating library branches.[8]
• Michael Halliday publishes a seminal paper on the systemic functional grammar model.[9]

• January 8 – Arnaldur Indriðason, Icelandic crime novelist[10]
• January 11 – Jasper Fforde, English fantasy novelist
• January 12 – Simon Russell Beale, Malaysian-born English actor
• January 28 – Arnaldur Indridason, Icelandic writer
• May 17 – Han Dong, Chinese poet and novelist
• May 19 – Jennifer Armstrong, American children's author
• June 9 – Aaron Sorkin, American screenwriter, producer and playwright
• June 23 – David Leavitt, American novelist
• June 24 – Rebecca Solnit, American writer and essayist
• July 7 – Eric Jerome Dickey, American writer
• July 10 – Carol Anne Davis, Scottish crime writer
• July 18 – M.J. Alexander, American author and photographer
• July – Richard Flanagan, Australian novelist
• August 20 – Greg Egan, Australian science fiction author
• September 13 – Tom Holt, English historical and comic novelist and poet
• September 26 – Will Self, English novelist, political commentator and broadcaster
• October 29 – Michael Gurr, Australian playwright (died 2017)
• November 9 – Jackie Kay, Scottish poet and novelist
• November 14 – Jurga Ivanauskaitė, Lithuanian writer (died 2007)
• November 18 – Steven Moffat, Scottish TV writer
• November 24 – Arundhati Roy, Indian writer and activist
• November – Sarah Holland, English novelist, actress and singer
• December 8 – Ann Coulter, American author
• November 20 – David Mills, American journalist and TV writer (died 2010)
• December 23 – Ezzat el Kamhawi, Egyptian novelist and journalist
• December 30 – Douglas Coupland, Canadian author

Uncertain date

• Winsome Pinnock, black British playwright

• January 10 – Dashiell Hammett, American crime writer and screenwriter (lung cancer, born 1894)[11]
• January 21 – Blaise Cendrars (Frédéric-Louis Sauser), Swiss novelist and poet (born 1887)
• January 30 – Dorothy Thompson, American journalist (born 1893)
• March 18 – E. Arnot Robertson, English novelist (born 1903)
• April 9 – Oliver Onions (George Oliver), English novelist and ghost story writer (born 1873)
• April 22 – Joanna Cannan, English pony book writer and detective novelist (born 1896)
• May 26 – William Troy, American writer and teacher (cancer, born 1903)
• June 2 – George S. Kaufman, American dramatist and critic (born 1889)
• July 1 – Louis-Ferdinand Céline, French novelist and pamphleteer (born 1894)
• July 2 – Ernest Hemingway, American novelist (suicide, born 1899)
• July 12 – Mazo de la Roche, Canadian novelist (born 1879)
• July 17 – Olga Forsh, Russian dramatist, novelist and memoirist (born 1873)
• September 27 – H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), American poet, novelist and memoirist (born 1886)
• October 19 – Mihail Sadoveanu, Romanian novelist (born 1880)
• November 2 – James Thurber, American humorist (born 1894)
• December 7 – Roussan Camille, Haitian poet and journalist (born 1912)
• December 26 – Gertrude Minnie Faulding, English children's writer and novelist (born 1875)

• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Lucy M. Boston, A Stranger at Green Knowe
• Eric Gregory Award: Adrian Mitchell, Geoffrey Hill
• Formentor Prize: Jorge Luis Borges and Samuel Beckett
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Jennifer Dawson, The Ha-Ha
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: M. K. Ashby, Joseph Ashby of Tysoe
• Lorne Pierce Medal: Robertson Davies
• Miles Franklin Award: Patrick White, Riders in the Chariot
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins
• Nobel Prize for literature: Ivo Andric
• Premio Nadal: Juan Antonio Payno, El curso
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Tad Mosel, All the Way Home
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Phyllis McGinley, Times Three: Selected Verse From Three Decades
• National Book Award for Fiction: Conrad Richter, The Waters of Kronos
• National Book Award for Nonfiction: William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
• National Book Award for Poetry: Randall Jarrell, The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Poems and Translations