1931 in literature

Events

• Samuel Beckett publishes "Proust," a collection of essays

New Books

• Afternoon Men[?] - Anthony Powell
• Black No More[?] - George S. Schuyler[?]
• The Cat Who Went to Heaven[?] - Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth[?]
• The Chinaberry Tree[?] - Jessie Redmond Fauset[?]
• The Colored Gentlemen, A Product of Modern Civilization[?] - Dennis F. Imbert[?]
• The Dutch Shoe Mystery[?] - Ellery Queen
• The Glass Key[?] - Dashiell Hammett
• The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck
• Hatter's Castle - A.J. Cronin
• Highland Fling[?] - Nancy Mitford
• Judith Paris[?] - Hugh Walpole[?]
• The Lonely Road[?] - Nevil Shute
• A New Theory of Magnetic Storms - Chapman[?] and Ferraro[?]
• No Man's Meat[?] - Morley Callaghan
• Prince Jali[?] - Leopold Myers[?]
• The Secret of Shadow Ranch[?] - Carolyn Keene
• Wild Orchid[?] - Sigrid Undset

Births

• January 6 - E.L. Doctorow, author
• January 27 - Mordecai Richler, author (+ 2001)
• February 10 - Thomas Bernhard[?], author (+ 1989)
• February 11 - Larry Merchant[?], author/boxing commentator.
• February 18 - Toni Morrison, writer, winner 1993Nobel Prize in literature
  • Johnny Hart[?], cartoonist
• March 2 - Tom Wolfe
• August 12 - William Goldman, author
• October 19 - John le Carré

Deaths

• August 27 - Frank Harris, author and editor,
• August 31 - Hall Caine, author
• October 13 - Ernst Didring, swedish writer,

Awards

• Newberry Medal for children's literature: Elizabeth Coatsworth[?], The Cat Who Went to Heaven
• Nobel Prize for literature - Erik Axel Karlfeldt
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Susan Glaspell[?], Alison's House
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Frost: Collected Poems
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: Margaret Ayer Barnes[?] - Years of Grace