1944 in literature

The year 1944 in literature involved some significant new books.

Events

New prose fiction

• Samuel Hopkins Adams – Canal Town
• Jorge Amado – Terras do Sem Fim (The Violent Land)
• Saul Bellow – Dangling Man
• Jorge Luis Borges – Fictions
• Christianna Brand – Green for Danger
• John Dickson Carr
  • Till Death Do Us Part
  • He Wouldn't Kill Patience (as by Carter Dickson)
• Joyce Cary – The Horse's Mouth
• Louis-Ferdinand Céline - Guignol's Band
• Agatha Christie
  • Death Comes as the End
  • Towards Zero
  • Absent in the Spring (as by Mary Westmacott)
• Edmund Crispin – The Case of the Gilded Fly
• Eric Linklater – The Wind on the Moon
• A. J. Cronin – The Green Years
• Esther Forbes – Johnny Tremain
• Jean Genet – Notre Dame des Fleurs
• John Hersey – A Bell for Adano
• Georgette Heyer – Friday's Child
• Charles R. Jackson – The Lost Weekend
• Pär Lagerkvist – Dvärgen
• Astrid Lindgren – Pippi Longstocking
• H. P. Lovecraft – Marginalia
• W. Somerset Maugham – The Razor's Edge
• Oscar Micheaux – The Case of Mrs. Wingate
• Alberto Moravia – Agostino (Two Adolescents)
• Gunnar Myrdal – An American Dilemma
• Feodor Rojankovsky – The Tall Book of Nursery Tales
• Anya Seton – Dragonwyck
• Clark Ashton Smith – Lost Worlds
• Rex Stout – Not Quite Dead Enough
• Phoebe Atwood Taylor – Dead Ernest (as by Alice Tilton)
• Donald Wandrei – The Eye and the Finger
• Martin Wickremasinghe – Gamperaliya
• Henry S. Whitehead – Jumbee and Other Uncanny Tales

New drama

• Jean Anouilh – Antigone
• Bertolt Brecht – The Caucasian Chalk Circle (written)
• Lawrence Riley – Time to Kill
• John Van Druten – I Remember Mama

Poetry

• James K. Baxter – Beyond the Palisade
• Paul Éluard – Au rendez-vous allemand (To the German Rendezvous)
• Five Young American Poets, volume 3, including work by Eve Merriam, John Frederick Nims, Jean Garrigue, Tennessee Williams and Alejandro Carrión
• Nicholas Moore – The Glass Tower

Non-fiction

• Charles William Beebe – Book of Naturalists.
• Friedrich Hayek – The Road to Serfdom.
• Max Horkheimer & Theodor W. Adorno – Dialectic of Enlightenment.
• Margaret Landon – Anna and the King of Siam.
• Gunnar Myrdal – An American Dilemma.
• Charles Stevenson – Ethics and Language.

Births

• January 8 – Terry Brooks, writer of fantasy fiction
• January 21 – Jack Abbott, murderer and acclaimed writer
• February 7 – Witi Ihimaera, New Zealand Māori writer, author of The Whale Rider
• February 14
  • Alan Parker, director, writer
  • Carl Bernstein, journalist
• February 16 – Richard Ford, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist
• May 13 – Armistead Maupin, novelist
• May 17 – Uldis Bērziņš, poet and translator
• May 18 – W. G. Sebald, novelist (died 2001)
• June 5 – John Fraser, journalist
• August 18 – Paula Danziger, young adult book novelist
• August 30 – Molly Ivins, journalist
• October 2 – Vernor Vinge, science fiction novelist
• October 5 – Tomás de Jesús Mangual, journalist
• November 7 – Peter Wilby, journalist
• November 24 – Eintou Pearl Springer, poet
• November 28 – Rita Mae Brown, writer and political activist
• December 17 – Jack L. Chalker, science fiction novelist
• date unknown
  • Tom Leonard, dialect poet
  • Patrick O'Connell, poet (died 2004)

Deaths

• January 6 – Ida M. Tarbell, journalist
• January 8 – Joseph Jastrow, psychologist
• January 31 – Jean Giraudoux, dramatist
• February 10 – Israel Joshua Singer, Yiddish novelist
• February 12 – Olive Custance, poet (born 1874)
• March 5
  • Max Jacob, poet and critic
  • Alun Lewis, war poet (accidental shooting)
• March 28 – Stephen Leacock, economist
• May 3 – Anica Černej, Slovenian poet (born 1900) (concentration camp victim)
• May 12 – Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, "Q"
• May 16 – George Ade, journalist and dramatist
• June
  • Joseph Campbell, poet (born 1879)
  • Elizabeth Wharton Drexel, socialite and author
• June 9 – Keith Douglas, war poet
• June 16 – Marc Bloch, historian
• July 31 – Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French pilot and writer (born 1900)
• September 13 – W. Heath Robinson, cartoonist and illustrator
• October 19 – Karel Poláček, writer, humourist, journalist
• November 15 – Edith Durham, travel writer (born 1863)
• December 17 – Robert Nichols, poet and dramatist (born 1893)
• December 30 – Romain Rolland, Nobel Prize winning author
• date unknown – Ethel Lina White, crime novelist

Awards

• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Eric Linklater, The Wind on the Moon
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Forrest Reid, Young Tom
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: C. V. Wedgwood, William the Silent
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain
• Nobel Prize for literature: Johannes Vilhelm Jensen
• Premio Nadal (first award): Carmen Laforet, Nada
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Stephen Vincent Benét, Western Star
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Martin Flavin, Journey in the Dark
• E. E. Cummings receives the Shelley Memorial Award for Poetry.