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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
• Frank Yerby - Benton's Row

New drama

• Brendan Behan - The Quare Fellow
• Terence Rattigan - Separate Tables
• Dylan Thomas - Under Milk Wood
• Thornton Wilder - The Matchmaker

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

• 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
• King's Gold Medal for Poetry: Ralph Hodgson