This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1942.
Children and young people
BB (Denys Watkins-Pitchford) – The Little Grey Men
Enid Blyton
Five on a Treasure Island
Mary Mouse and the Doll's House
Eleanor Estes – The Middle Moffat
Janette Sebring Lowrey – The Poky Little Puppy
Diana Ross – The Little Red Engine Gets a Name (first in Little Red Engine series of nine books)
David Severn – Rick Afire
Hildegarde Swift – The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge
Elizabeth Gray Vining (as Elizabeth Janet Gray) – Adam of the Road
Ursula Moray Williams – Gobbolino, the Witch's Cat
Jean Anouilh – Antigone
Jacinto Benavente – La honradez de la cerradura
Paul Vincent Carroll – The Strings Are False
Maurice Druon – Mégarée
Arthur Miller – Thunder from the Hills (radio play)
Kaj Munk – Niels Ebbesen
Eugene O'Neill – A Touch of the Poet (written)
Terence Rattigan – Flare Path
T. S. Eliot – Little Gidding
Patrick Kavanagh – The Great Hunger
Saint-John Perse – Exil
Elizabeth Bowen – Bowen's Court
Albert Camus – The Myth of Sisyphus (Le Mythe de Sisyphe)
Salvador Dalí – The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí
Edith Hamilton – Mythology
Richard Hillary – The Last Enemy
Aldous Huxley – The Art of Seeing
C. S. Lewis – A Preface to Paradise Lost
Elliot Paul – The Last Time I Saw Paris
Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. – Picketing Hell
Radu D. Rosetti – Odinioară
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – Flight to Arras
Rebecca West – Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
January 31 – Derek Jarman, English film director, writer and diarist (died 1994)
February 1 – Terry Jones, Welsh comedian and writer
February – David Williamson, Australian playwright
March 2 – John Irving, American novelist and screenwriter
March 28 – Daniel Dennett, American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist
April 1 – Samuel R. Delany, American novelist, essayist and critic
April 4 – Kitty Kelley, American biographer and journalist
April 20 – Arto Paasilinna, Finnish novelist and journalist
May 6 – Ariel Dorfman, Argentine/Chilean novelist, playwright and essayist
May 11 – Rachel Billington, English author
August 2 – Isabel Allende, Chilean novelist
August 7 – Garrison Keillor, American humorous writer and broadcaster
September 1 – António Lobo Antunes, Portuguese novelist and physician
October 20 – Bob Graham, Australian children's writer and illustrator
October 23
Michael Crichton, American writer and director (died 2008)
Douglas Dunn, Scottish poet and scholar
October 24 – Frank Delaney, Irish-born novelist, journalist and broadcaster (died 2017)
November 8 – Fernando Sorrentino, Argentine writer
November 19 – Sharon Olds, American poet
November 24 – Craig Thomas, Welsh novelist (died 2011)
December 6 – Peter Handke, Austrian novelist and playwright
Unknown date – Mohamed Zafzaf, Moroccan novelist (died 2001)
February 2 – Daniil Kharms, Russian poet, writer and dramatist (died in prison, born 1905)
February 18 – Henri Stahl, Romanian historian, short story writer, memoirist and stenographer (born 1877)
March 28 – Miguel Hernández, Spanish poet (died in prison, born 1910)
April 24 – Lucy Maud Montgomery, Canadian novelist and children's writer (born 1874)
May 11 – Sakutarō Hagiwara (萩原 朔太郎), Japanese poet (born 1886)
May 20 – Nini Roll Anker, Norwegian novelist and playwright (born 1873)
May 26 – Libero Bovio, Neapolitan dialect poet (born 1883)
May 29 – Akiko Yosano (与謝野 晶子, Yosano Shiyo), Japanese poet and feminist (born 1878)
May – Jakob van Hoddis (Hans Davidsohn) German poet (died in extermination camp, born 1887)
June 30 – Léon Daudet, French writer and journalist (born 1867)
July 1 – Peadar Toner Mac Fhionnlaoich, Irish writer in Irish (born 1857)
August 17 – Irène Némirovsky, Russian-born French novelist (died in concentration camp, born 1903)
August 27 – Lev Nussimbaum, Russian and Azerbaijani novelist (gangrene, born 1905)
September 26 – Oskar Kraus, Czech philosopher (born 1872)
October 14 – Cosmo Hamilton, English dramatist and novelist (born 1870)
October 20 – Friedrich Münzer, German classicist (born 1868)
October 29 – Màrius Torres, Catalan Spanish poet (born 1910)
November 4
Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson, American novelist and textbook and children's writer (born 1863)
Clementine Krämer, German poet and short-story writer (died in concentration camp, born 1873)
December 23 – Konstantin Balmont, Russian Symbolist poet and translator (born 1867)
Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Denys Watkins-Pitchford, The Little Grey Men
Frost Medal: Edgar Lee Masters
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Arthur Waley, Translation of Monkey by Wu Cheng'en
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, Henry Ponsonby: Queen Victoria's Private Secretary
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Walter D. Edmonds, The Matchlock Gun
Nobel Prize for literature: not awarded
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: not awarded
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: William Rose Benet, The Dust Which Is God
Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Ellen Glasgow, In This Our Life
Laurent Binet's novel HHhH (2010) is based around the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich on 4 June 1942.
Graham Greene's novel The Heart of the Matter (1948) is set during this year, with a background of the author's experiences as a wartime intelligence officer in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
1942 in literature Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA
