1976 in literature

• January – The first Kolkata Book Fair opens in India.
• June 21 – The Market Theatre (Johannesburg) is opened as a multiracial venue by Barney Simon.
• September 9 – The Royal Shakespeare Company starts a noted production of Shakespeare's Macbeth at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, England, with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench in the leading roles, directed by Trevor Nunn.
• October 25 – The Royal National Theatre on London's South Bank opens in premises designed by Sir Denys Lasdun, with a performance of Goldoni's 18th-century comedy Il Campiello.[1] Its Lyttleton Theatre first previews on 8 March, followed on 16 March by a performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet by Albert Finney directed by Peter Hall. Its Olivier Theatre opens on October 4 with Marlowe's Elizabethan drama Tamburlaine, also with Finney in the title rôle, directed by Peter Hall.

Uncertain dates

• Novelist Antonio di Benedetto is imprisoned and tortured under the National Reorganization Process (military dictatorship) in Argentina.
• Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers is established in new premises at Nanterre.[2]
• Saul Bellow wins both the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

• February 3 – Isla Fisher, Australian actress and author
• August 29 – T. James Belich (Colorado Tolston), American playwright, novelist and actor
• October 31 – Seth Abramson, American professor and poet

Uncertain dates

• Marion Brunet, French young adult and crime fiction writer
• Jon McGregor, Bermuda-born British fiction writer

• January 12 – Agatha Christie, English crime writer (born 1890)
• January 25 – Victor Ehrenberg, German historian (born 1891)
• February 2 – Barbara Euphan Todd, English children's writer (born 1890)
• February 12 – John Lewis, Welsh philosopher (born 1889)
• March 7 – Tove Ditlevsen, Danish poet and fiction writer, suicide (born 1917)
• March 13 – Sergiu Dan, Romanian novelist and journalist (born 1903)
• March 24 – E. H. Shepard, English illustrator and autobiographer (born 1879)
• March 31 – Edward Streeter, American humorist (born 1891)
• April 17 – Allardyce Nicoll, British literary scholar (born 1894)
• April 22 – Joe David Brown, American novelist and journalist (born 1915)
• April 28 – Richard Hughes, English novelist (born 1900)
• May 7 – Alison Uttley, English writer of children's books (born 1884)
• June 18 – Malcolm Johnson, American journalist (born 1904)
• July 3 – Alexander Lernet-Holenia, Austrian poet, dramatist and fiction writer (born 1897)
• August 29 – Kazi Nazrul Islam, Bengali poet (born 1899)
• September 10 – Dalton Trumbo, American novelist and screenwriter (born 1905)
• October 30 – Barbu Solacolu, Romanian poet, translator and economist (born 1897)
• November 4 – Robert Speaight, English actor, biographer and essayist (born 1904)
• November 6 – Patrick Dennis, American novelist (pancreatic cancer, born 1921)
• December 21 – Munro Leaf, American children's author (born 1905)
• December 22 – Martín Luis Guzmán, Mexican novelist and journalist (born 1887)
• December 26 – Yashpal, Hindi novelist (born 1903)
• December 29 – G. B. Edwards, Guernsey-born writer (born 1899)

Uncertain date

• Mark Slonim, Russian literary historian and critic (born 1894)

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Saul Bellow