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The year 1956 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• Writing under the pseudonym of Emile Ajar, author Romain Gary becomes the only person ever to win the Prix Goncourt twice.
• Iris Murdoch marries John Bayley.
• Aldous Huxley marries author Laura Archera.
• C. S. Lewis marries Joy Gresham.
• Finished in 1952, Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy (Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street), is first published.
• First book in the long-running 87th Precinct series, Cop Hater, is first published, written by Ed McBain
• Nineteen-year-old Hunter S. Thompson is arrested for robbery.
• Sixteen-year-old Michael Moorcock becomes editor of Tarzan Adventures.
• Jorge Luis Borges becomes a professor of literature at the University of Buenos Aires.
• Martin Gardner begins his Mathematical Games column in Scientific American.

New books

• Kingsley Amis - That Uncertain Feeling
• Poul Anderson - Planet of No Return
• Isaac Asimov - The Naked Sun
• James Baldwin - Giovanni's Room
• Saul Bellow - Seize the Day
• Pierre Berton - The Mysterious North
• Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination (as Tiger! Tiger!)
• Anthony Burgess - Time for a Tiger
• Pearl S. Buck - Imperial Woman
• Albert Camus - The Fall (La Chute)
• John Dickson Carr
  • Patrick Butler for the Defense
  • Fear Is the Same (as by Carter Dickson)
• Agatha Christie - Dead Man's Folly
• Arthur C. Clarke - The City and the Stars
• A. J. Cronin
  • A Thing of Beauty
  • Crusader's Tomb
• Philip K. Dick
  • The Man Who Japed
  • Minority Report
• Gordon R. Dickson
  • Alien From Arcturus
  • Mankind on the Run
• Gerald Durrell - My Family and Other Animals
• Ian Fleming - Diamonds Are Forever
• Romain Gary - Les racines du ciel
• William Golding - Pincher Martin
• Henri René Guieu - Les Monstres du Néant
• Mark Harris - Bang the Drum Slowly
• Marguerite Henry - Misty of Chincoteague
• Frank Herbert - The Dragon in the Sea
• Georgette Heyer - Sprig Muslin
• Kathryn Hulme - The Nun's Story
• C. S. Lewis
  • The Last Battle
  • Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
• Rose Macaulay - The Towers of Trebizond
• Ed McBain - Cop Hater
• Naguib Mahfouz
  • Cairo Trilogy
  • Palace Walk
• Grace Metalious - Peyton Place
• Nicholas Monsarrat - The Tribe That Lost Its Head
• Farley Mowat - Lost in the Barrens
• Agnar Mykle - Song of the Red Ruby
• Edwin O'Connor - The Last Hurrah
• Pier Paolo Pasolini - Ragazzi di vita
• Mervyn Peake - Boy in Darkness
• Mary Renault - The Last of the Wine
• Kenneth Roberts - Boon Island
• João Guimarães Rosa - The Devil to Pay in the Backlands (Grande Sertão: Veredas)
• Françoise Sagan - A Certain Smile
• Samuel Selvon - The Lonely Londoners
• Irwin Shaw - Lucy Crown
• Khushwant Singh - Train to Pakistan
• Rex Stout - Might as Well Be Dead
• Rex Stout - Three Witnesses
• Kay Thompson - Eloise
• A. E. van Vogt - The Wizard of Linn
• Angus Wilson - Anglo-Saxon Attitudes
• P. G. Wodehouse - French Leave
• Eiji Yoshikawa - Heike Story

New drama

• Jean Anouilh - Poor Bitos
• Ferdinand Bruckner - The Fight with the Angel
• Friedrich Dürrenmatt - The Visit
• Günter Grass - Flood
• Hugh Leonard - The Birthday Party
• Saunders Lewis - Siwan
• Arthur Miller - A View from the Bridge (revised version)
• Yukio Mishima - Rokumeikan
• Heiner Müller - The Scab
• Eugene O'Neill - Long Day's Journey into Night
• John Osborne - Look Back in Anger
• Arnold Wesker - Chicken Soup with Barley (written)
• Carl Zuckmayer - The Cold Light

Poetry

• Aniara - Harry Martinson
• Howl and Other Poems - Allen Ginsberg

Non-fiction

• A. J. Liebling - The Sweet Science
• Norman Mailer - The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster

Births

• January 2 - Storm Constantine
• March 23 - Steven Saylor, historical novelist
• May 4 - David Guterson, journalist and novelist
• May 20 - Boris Akunin, novelist and essayist
• June 9 - Patricia Cornwell, crime novelist
• October 9 - Robert Reed, science fiction author
• October 13 - Chris Carter, screenwriter
• November 26 - John McCarthy, journalist and kidnap victim
• date unknown
  • James Belich, historian
  • Amy Gerstler, poet
  • Alexander Jablokov, American writer and novelist
  • Jack Womack, novelist

Deaths

• January 14 - Sheila Kaye-Smith, novelist
• January 29 - H L Mencken (b. 1880), writer
• January 31 - A.A. Milne, dramatist and children's author
• March 30 - Edmund Clerihew Bentley, novelist and inventor of the clerihew
• May 20 - Max Beerbohm, humorist
• June 22 - Walter de la Mare, poet
• July 8 - Giovanni Papini, essayist, poet, novelist
• August 14 - Bertolt Brecht, dramatist
• September 6 - Michael Ventris, linguist
• December 13 - Arthur Grimble, travel writer
• December 25 - Robert Walser, novelist

Awards

• Duff Cooper Prize: Alan Moorehead, Gallipoli
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: St John Greer Ervine, George Bernard Shaw
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Jean Lee Latham, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
• Nobel Prize for literature: Juan Ramón Jiménez
• Premio Nadal: José Luis Martín Descalzo, La frontera de Dios
• Prix Goncourt: Romain Gary for Les racines du ciel
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich, Diary of Anne Frank
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: MacKinlay Kantor - Andersonville
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Elizabeth Bishop: Poems - North & South
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Edmund Blunden