This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1962.
Children and young people
Joan Aiken – The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
Penelope Farmer – The Summer Birds
C. S. Forester – Hornblower and the Hotspur
Ezra Jack Keats – The Snowy Day (picture book)
Jean Little – Mine for Keeps
Eloise Jarvis McGraw – The Golden Goblet
Ruth Park – The Muddle-Headed Wombat
Ivan Southall – Hills End
Bernard Waber – The House on East 88th Street (first in the Lyle the Crocodile series)
Bill Peet – Smokey
Edward Albee – Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Wilberto Cantón – Nosotros somos Dios (We Are God)
Friedrich Dürrenmatt – Die Physiker (The Physicists)
Witold Gombrowicz – Historia
Spike Milligan and John Antrobus – The Bed-Sitting Room
David Rudkin – Afore Night Come
Peter Shaffer – The Private Ear/The Public Eye (double bill)
Bella Akhmadulina – Struna (The String)
George Oppen – The Materials
Al Purdy – Poems for all the Annettes
William Carlos Williams – Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems
Philippe Ariès – L'Enfant et la vie familiale sous l'Ancien Régime (Children and Family Life under the Ancien Régime, translated as Centuries of Childhood, 1962)
W. H. Auden – The Dyer's Hand and other essays
Helen Gurley Brown – Sex and the Single Girl
Rachel Carson – Silent Spring
Thomas B. Costain – The Last Plantagenets (last book in the Pageant of England series)
L. Sprague de Camp – Energy and Power
August Derleth – 100 Books by August Derleth
Milovan Đilas – Conversations with Stalin
Milton Friedman – Capitalism and Freedom
Thomas Kuhn – The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Dumas Malone – Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty
W. Somerset Maugham – Looking Back
V. S. Naipaul – The Middle Passage: Impressions of Five Societies – British, French and Dutch in the West Indies and South America
Louis Nizer – My Life in Court
Russell Page – The Education of a Gardener
John Steinbeck – Travels With Charley: In Search of America
Percy Thrower – Percy Thrower's Encyclopaedia of Gardening
Barbara Tuchman – The Guns of August
January 17 – Sebastian Junger, American novelist, journalist and documentary film-maker
February 8 – Malorie Blackman, Barbadian-born English writer for young adults and children
February 21
Chuck Palahniuk, American novelist and journalist
David Foster Wallace, American novelist and essayist (died 2008)
March 30 – Yōko Ogawa (小川 洋子), Japanese novelist and essayist
March 31 – Michal Viewegh, Czech fiction writer
April 2 – Mark Shulman, American children's author
April 13 – Chris Riddell, South African-born English children's book illustrator
April 22 – B. Jeyamohan, Tamil novelist
May 17 – Lise Lyng Falkenberg, Danish novelist and biographer
July 30 – Lavinia Greenlaw, English poet and novelist
August 10 – Suzanne Collins, American novelist and television writer
August 16 – Christian Cameron, American-born Canadian writer
August 27 – Sjón (Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson), Icelandic novelist and poet
September 22 - Nuzo Onoh, British-Nigerian writer
October 19 – Tracy Chevalier, American historical novelist
October 28 – Mark Haddon, English novelist and poet
November 12
Neal Shusterman, American children's author and poet
Naomi Wolf, American writer and activist
Yang Hongying (楊紅櫻), Chinese children's author
January 17 – Gerrit Achterberg, Dutch poet (heart attack, born 1905)
January 20 – Robinson Jeffers, American poet (born 1887)
January 24 – Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Turkish novelist and essayist (born 1901)
February 16 – Frank Prewett, Canadian poet (born 1893)
February 24 – Hu Shih (胡適), Chinese Nobel Prize winning philosopher and language reformer (born 1891)
March 3 – Pierre Benoit, French novelist (born 1886)
April or May – Constantin Gane, Romanian biographer and historical novelist (born 1885)
April 24 – Emilio Prados, Spanish poet and editor (born 1899)
May 26 – Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, English poet (born 1878)
June 2 – Vita Sackville-West, English poet and gardener (born 1892)
June 27 – Paul Viiding, Estonian poet and critic (born 1904)
July 6 – William Faulkner, American novelist and Nobel laureate (born 1897)
July 8 – Georges Bataille, French writer (cerebral arteriosclerosis, born 1897)
July 21 – G. M. Trevelyan, English historian (born 1876)
July 27 – Richard Aldington, English poet and novelist (born 1892)
August 9 – Hermann Hesse, German-born Swiss novelist, poet and painter (born 1877)
September 3 – E. E. Cummings, American poet (born 1894)
September 21 – Ouyang Yuqian (欧阳予倩), Chinese dramatist (born 1889)
September 22 – Jean-René Huguenin, French novelist and literary critic (born in 1936)
September 23 – Patrick Hamilton, English dramatist (liver and kidney failure, born 1904)
November 17 – Sandu Tudor, Romanian poet, journalist and theologian (stroke and possibly torture, born 1896)
December 3 – Dame Mary Gilmore, Australian poet and journalist (born 1865)
December 12 – Felix Aderca, Romanian novelist, critic, poet and journalist (cancer, born 1891)
December 18 – Garrett Mattingly, American historian (born 1900)
American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Fiction: William Faulkner
Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Pauline Clarke, The Twelve and the Genii
Eric Gregory Award: Donald Thomas, James Simmons, Brian Johnson, Jenny Joseph
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Ronald Hardy, Act of Destruction
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Meriol Trevor, Newman: The Pillar and the Cloud and Newman: Light in Winter
Miles Franklin Award: Thea Astley, The Well Dressed Explorer and George Turner, The Cupboard Under the Stairs
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Elizabeth George Speare, The Bronze Bow
Newdigate Prize: Stanley Johnson
Nobel Prize for Literature: John Steinbeck
Premio Nadal: José María Mendiola, Muerte por fusilamiento
Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Frank Loesser, Abe Burrows, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Edwin O'Connor, The Edge of Sadness
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Alan Dugan, Poems
Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Christopher Fry
1962 in literature Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA
