– The American dramatist Arthur Miller and the film star Marilyn Monroe are granted a divorce in Mexico on grounds of incompatibility.^[1]

February – suffers a miscarriage. Several of her poems, including "Parliament Hill Fields", address the event.^[2]

– Hugh Wheeler's comedy Big Fish, Little Fish opens at the ANTA Theater in New York City, directed by Sir John Gielgud. It is one of the early Broadway plays to explore frankly the issue of male homosexuality.^[3]

– The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, becomes the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and its company the Royal Shakespeare Company, with Peter Hall as director.^[4]

May – Grove Press publishes 's Tropic of Cancer in the United States 27 years after its original publication in France. The book leads to one of many obscenity trials (Grove Press, Inc., v. Gerstein) that test American laws on pornography in the 1960s.

– The British bookseller WHSmith closes the last of its in-store circulating library branches.^[5]

– The first issue of Fantastic Four, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, is published. It is considered the beginning of the post-World War II Marvel Comics line of superhero comic books.

– The British magazine Tribune publishes a letter from playwright John Osborne beginning "Damn You, England..."^[6]

– Publication of the science fiction novel series Perry Rhodan, der Erbe des Universums, originally written by K. H. Scheer and Walter Ernsting, is begun by Arthur Moewig Verlag in Germany in Romanhefte (partwork) format. It is then published every week, attaining more than 2880 issues and around two billion total copies sold worldwide by the end of 2016.^[7]

– Novelist William Golding, having resigned a teaching post at Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury, sets off for the academic year 1961/1962 to teach at Hollins College, Virginia, United States.^[8]

– Joseph Heller's satirical novel Catch-22 is first put on sale by Simon & Schuster in the United States, after favorable advance reviews in October. Heller has been working on the book since 1953, based on his experiences as a bombardier during World War II. Its title, which becomes a phrase referring to a no-win situation, had previously been Catch-18.^[9][10]

unknown date – publishes a seminal paper on the systemic functional grammar model.^[11]

– The Primal Urge^[12]

– Three Hearts and Three Lions^[13]

– The Wind From Nowhere

– Term of Trial^[14]

– The Incredible Journey^[15]

– A Passion in Rome

– The Witch of the Low Tide: An Edwardian Melodrama^[16]

– The Mercy of God

– Daughters in Law

– The Day of the Sardine

– A Lotus for Miss Quon

Agatha Christie

– The Judas Tree

– The Ha-Ha

– The Worm of Death

– The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate

– Stop at a Winner

– The Reminiscences of Solar Pons

– Jagua Nana

– Thunderball (based on screen treatment by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham and the author)

(as Eliot George) – The Leather Boys

– No One Writes to the Colonel (El coronel no tiene quien le escriba)

– The Youngest Director

– Doctor on Toast

(as Ogdred Weary) – The Curious Sofa. A Pornographic Tale

– Marnie

– Everything Flows (Все течет; first published 1989)

– The Stainless Steel Rat

– Stranger in a Strange Land

– Catch-22

– The Wall

– This Sweet Sickness^[17]

-The Fox in the Attic^[18]

– Silence Observed

– Household Ghosts ^[19]

– The Jumbie Bird

– The Stone Angel^[20]

– Call for the Dead

– Solaris

– The Way to the Lantern^[21]

– The Shunned House

– The Wycherly Woman

– Mezzotint

– The Nodding Canaries

– A Severed Head^[22]

– A House for Mr. Biswas^[23]

– The Man-Eater of Malgudi

– El astillero (The Shipyard)^[24]

– The Moviegoer

– Killing a Mouse on Sunday

– Un Nos Ola Leuad (One Moonlit Night)^[25]

– The Carpetbaggers

– Franny and Zooey

– Il giorno della civetta

– The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie^[26]

– I Met a Lady

– The Winter of Our Discontent

– The Agony and the Ecstasy

– The Final Deduction

– Some of Your Blood

(谷崎 潤一郎) – The Diary of a Mad Old Man (瘋癲老人日記)^[27]

– Mila 18

– Le Front de l'art

– Strayers from Sheol

– The Pawnbroker

– Unconditional Surrender

– Daughter of Silence

– The Old Men at the Zoo

– Revolutionary Road

– Arnaldur Indriðason, Icelandic crime novelist^[32]

– Jasper Fforde, English fantasy novelist

– Simon Russell Beale, Malaysian-born English Shakespearean actor^[33]

– Arnaldur Indridason, Icelandic writer^[34]

– Ishita Bhaduri, Indian poet and writer

– Han Dong, Chinese poet and novelist

– Jennifer Armstrong, American children's author

– Andrea Dunbar, English playwright (died 1990)

– Aaron Sorkin, American screenwriter, producer and playwright

– David Leavitt, American novelist

– Rebecca Solnit, American writer and essayist

– Eric Jerome Dickey, American writer

– Carol Anne Davis, Scottish crime writer

– M. J. Alexander, American author and photographer

July – , Australian novelist

– Greg Egan, Australian science fiction author

– Tom Holt, English historical and comic novelist and poet

– Will Self, English novelist, political commentator and broadcaster

– Sílvia Soler, Catalan writer and journalist

– Michael Gurr, Australian playwright (died 2017)

– Jackie Kay, Scottish poet and novelist

– Jurga Ivanauskaitė, Lithuanian writer (died 2007)

– Steven Moffat, Scottish TV writer

– Arundhati Roy, Indian writer and activist

November – , English novelist, actress and singer

– Ann Coulter, American author^[35]

– David Mills, American journalist and TV writer (died 2010)

– Ezzat el Kamhawi, Egyptian novelist and journalist

– Douglas Coupland, Canadian author^[36]

unknown date – , British playwright

– Dashiell Hammett, American crime writer and screenwriter (lung cancer, born 1894)^[37]

– Blaise Cendrars (Frédéric-Louis Sauser), Swiss novelist and poet (born 1887)^[38]

– Dorothy Thompson, American journalist (born 1893)^[39]

– Hazel Heald, American pulp fiction writer (born 1896)

– E. Arnot Robertson, English novelist (born 1903)

– Oliver Onions (George Oliver), English novelist and ghost story writer (born 1873)

– Joanna Cannan, English pony book writer and detective novelist (born 1896)

– Jessie Redmon Fauset, American editor, writer and educator (born 1882)^[40]

– William Troy, American writer and teacher (cancer, born 1903)

– George S. Kaufman, American dramatist and critic (born 1889)^[41]

– Peyami Safa, Turkish journalist and writer (born 1899)^[42]

– Louis-Ferdinand Céline, French novelist and pamphleteer (born 1894)^[43]

– Ernest Hemingway, American novelist (suicide, born 1899)^[44]

– Mazo de la Roche, Canadian novelist (born 1879)^[45]

– Olga Forsh, Russian dramatist, novelist and memoirist (born 1873)

– Clark Ashton Smith, American writer (born 1893)

– Leonhard Frank, German writer (died 1882)

– H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), American poet, novelist and memoirist (born 1886)^[46]

– Mihail Sadoveanu, Romanian novelist (born 1880)

– James Thurber, American humorist (born 1894)^[47]

– Roussan Camille, Haitian poet and journalist (born 1912)^[48]

– Gertrude Minnie Faulding, English children's writer and novelist (born 1875)

for children's literature: Lucy M. Boston, A Stranger at Green Knowe^[49]

: Adrian Mitchell, Geoffrey Hill

: Jorge Luis Borges and Samuel Beckett

for fiction: Jennifer Dawson, The Ha-Ha

for biography: M. K. Ashby, Joseph Ashby of Tysoe^[50]

: Robertson Davies^[51]

: Patrick White, Riders in the Chariot

for children's literature: Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

: Ivo Andrić

: Juan Antonio Payno, El curso

: Jean Cau, La Pitié de Dieu^[52]

: Tad Mosel, All the Way Home

: Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

: Phyllis McGinley, Times Three: Selected Verse From Three Decades

: Conrad Richter, The Waters of Kronos

: William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

: Randall Jarrell, The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Poems and Translations