1954 in literature

The year 1954 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• Jack Kerouac reads Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible, which will influence him greatly.
• John Updike graduates from Harvard with a thesis on George Herbert.
• Lawrence Quincy Mumford becomes Librarian of Congress.

New books

• Kingsley Amis – Lucky Jim
• Poul Anderson – The Broken Sword
• Isaac Asimov – The Caves of Steel
• Hamilton Basso – The View from Pompey's Head
• Simone de Beauvoir – The Mandarins
• Pierre Boulle – The Bridge on the River Kwai (Le pont de la rivière Kwai)
• Taylor Caldwell – Never Victorious, Never Defeated
• John Dickson Carr
  • The Third Bullet and Other Stories
  • The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (with Adrian Conan Doyle)
• Agatha Christie – Destination Unknown
• Robertson Davies – Leaven of Malice
• Daphne du Maurier – Mary Anne
• Ian Fleming – Live and Let Die
• William Golding – Lord of the Flies
• Hergé – Explorers on the Moon
• Mac Hyman – No Time for Sergeants
• Frances Parkinson Keyes – The Royal Box
• C. S. Lewis – The Horse and His Boy
• Astrid Lindgren – Mio, my Mio
• Kamala Markandaya – Nectar in a Sieve
• Richard Matheson – I Am Legend
• John Metcalfe – The Feasting Dead
• James A. Michener – Sayonara
• Alberto Moravia – Il disprezzo (A Ghost at Noon)
• Iris Murdoch – Under the Net
• J. B. Priestley – The Magicians
• Marcel Proust – Jean Sauteuil (posthumously published)
• Ellery Queen – The Glass Village
• Pauline Réage – Histoire d'O (Story of O)
• Mordecai Richler – The Acrobats
• Anya Seton – Katherine
• Dr. Seuss – Horton Hears a Who!
• John Steinbeck – Sweet Thursday
• Irving Stone – Love Is Eternal
• Rex Stout
  • Three Men Out
  • The Black Mountain
• Edward Streeter – Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation
• Morton Thompson – Not as a Stranger
• J. R. R. Tolkien
  • The Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring
  • The Lord of the Rings : The Two Towers
• Amos Tutuola – My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
• Frank Yerby – Benton's Row

New drama

• Brendan Behan – The Quare Fellow
• Saunders Lewis – Siwan
• Terence Rattigan – Separate Tables
• Dylan Thomas – Under Milk Wood
• Thornton Wilder – The Matchmaker
• Dharamvir Bharati – Andha Yug (The Blind Age)

Non-fiction

• L. Sprague de Camp – Lost Continents
• Albert Einstein – Ideas and Opinions
• Aldous Huxley – The Doors of Perception
• Arthur Koestler – The Invisible Writing: The Second Volume Of An Autobiography, 1932–40
• Mervyn Peake – Figures of Speech

Births

• January 29 – Oprah Winfrey, actress, talk show host, producer, publisher
• June 28 – A. A. Gill, journalist and critic
• November – Christopher Pike, children's author
• Esther Delisle, Quebec author & historian

Deaths

• January 1 – Duff Cooper (1st Viscount Norwich), poet, biographer and politician
• January 25 – M. N. Roy, philosopher and politician
• March 28 – Francis Brett Young, novelist and poet
• April 8
  • Juan Álvarez, historian
  • Winnifred Eaton, Canadian author
• April 19 – Russell Davenport, journalist and publisher
• May 3 – Earnest Hooton, popular writer on anthropology
• August 3 – Colette, French novelist
• September 19 – Miles Franklin, novelist
• September 29 – W. J. Gruffydd, editor of Y Llenor (Literature)
• December 6 – Lucien Tesnière, grammarian

Awards

• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Ronald Welch, Knight Crusader
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: C. P. Snow, The New Men and The Masters
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Keith Feiling, Warren Hastings
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Joseph Krumgold, ...And Now Miguel
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Ernest Miller Hemingway
• Premio Nadal: Francisco Alcántara, La muerte sienta bien a Villalobos
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: John Patrick, The Teahouse of the August Moon
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Theodore Roethke: TheWaking
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Ralph Hodgson