1974 in literature

• February 12 – After publication at the end of 1973 of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago (Архипелаг ГУЛАГ), the author is arrested for treason; the following day he is deported from the Soviet Union. In spring and summer the first translations into French and English begin to appear.
• August 8 – The first of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City is published as a serial in The Pacific Sun (Marin County, California).
• October 21 – New Guildhall Library opens in the City of London.[1]

Uncertain dates

• Novelist Juan Carlos Onetti is one of a group arrested by the Uruguayan dictatorship for selecting as a competition prizewinner and publishing in the newspaper Marcha a short story implicitly critical of the military regime. He subsequently goes into exile in Spain.
• The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics is founded by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman.

• January 6 – Romain Sardou, French novelist
• January 26 – Shannon Hale, American fantasy author
• February 15 – Miranda July (née Grossinger), American filmmaker, performance artist and fiction writer
• April 13 – K. Sello Duiker, South African novelist (died 2005)[4]
• August 7 – Faisal Tehrani, Malaysian novelist
• August 9 – Ryūsui Seiryōin (清涼院 流水), Japanese novelist
• August 18 – Nicole Krauss, American novelist
• August 23 – Serhiy Zhadan, Ukrainian poet, novelist and essayist
• September 20 – Owen Sheers, Fijian-born Welsh poet, playwright and novelist
• November 4 – Carlos Be, Spanish playwright
• December 26 – Joshua John Miller, American novelist and screenwriter

Uncertain dates

• Naomi Alderman, English novelist
• Sarah Hall, English novelist
• Joanna Kavenna, English novelist and travel writer
• Joe Meno, American novelist and journalist
• Chika Unigwe, Nigerian novelist writing in English and Dutch
• Roger Williams, Welsh dramatist and screenwriter

• January 20 – Edmund Blunden, English poet and critic (born 1896)
• January 25 – James Pope-Hennessy, English biographer (murdered, born 1916)
• January 29 – H. E. Bates, English novelist (born 1905)
• February 2 – Marieluise Fleißer, German dramatist (born 1901)
• February 24 – Martin Armstrong, English poet and short story writer (born 1882)
• March 3 – Carl Jacob Burckhardt, Swiss historian (born 1891)
• March 19 – Austin Clarke, Irish poet, playwright and novelist (born 1896)
• March 24 – Olive Higgins Prouty, American novelist (born 1882)
• April 14 – Howard Pease, American novelist (born 1894)
• May 9 – L. T. C. Rolt, English biographer and writer of ghost stories (born 1910)
• May 13 – Arthur J. Burks, American writer (born 1898)
• June 2 – Tom Kristensen, Danish novelist and poet (born 1893)[5]
• June 11 – Julius Evola, Italian esotericist, journalist and philosopher (born 1898)
• June 9 – Miguel Ángel Asturias, Guatemalan Nobel Prize-winning novelist (born 1899)
• July 3 – Samuel Roth, American publisher (born 1893)
• July 4 – Georgette Heyer, English novelist (born 1902)
• August 7 – Rosario Castellanos, Mexican writer and diplomat (electric shock, born 1925)
• August 11 – Jan Tschichold, German-born typographer and writer (born 1902)
• September 21 – Jacqueline Susann, American novelist (born 1918)
• October 4 – Anne Sexton, American poet (born 1928)
• October 28 – David Jones, Anglo-Welsh poet and artist (born 1895)
• October 29 – Victor E. van Vriesland, Dutch writer (born 1892)
• November 5 – William Gardner Smith, expatriate American novelist and journalist (born 1927)
• November 7 – Eric Linklater, Welsh-born Scottish novelist and travel writer (born 1899)
• November 26 – Cyril Connolly, English critic and writer (born 1903)
• November 28 – David Jones, English artist and poet (born 1895)
• December 14 – Walter Lippmann, American writer (born 1889)

Uncertain dates

• Buddhadeb Bosu, Bengali poet and writer (born 1908)
• Sheila Stuart, Scottish author and children's writer (born 1892)

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson

• James Graham's play This House (2012)
• Christopher Hampton's play Treats (1975)
• Neamat Imam's novel The Black Coat (2013)
• Stephen King's novella Apt Pupil (1982) and novels Roadwork (1981) and The Shining (1977)
• Camilla Läckberg's novel The Angel Maker's Wife (2011)
• Maaza Mengiste's novel Beneath the Lion's Gaze (2010)
• Stewart O'Nan's novel Snow Angels (1994)
• David Adams Richards' novel The Bay of Love and Sorrows (1998)
• Shauna Seliy's novel When We Get There (2007)