See also: 1959 in literature, other events of 1960, 1961 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• Lawrence Durrell publishes Clea, the final volume of the four-book collection titled The Alexandria Quartet that began in 1957.

New Books

• Border Country - Raymond Williams
• Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - Anthony Powell
• The Chapman Report - Irving Wallace
• Clea - Lawrence Durrell
• Critique of Dialectical Reason - Jean-Paul Sartre
• Don't Tell Alfred - Nancy Mitford
• For Your Eyes Only - Ian Fleming
• Green Eggs and Ham - Dr. Seuss
• Hunters in a Narrow Street - Jabra Ibrahim Jabra
• The Many Colored Coat - Morley Callaghan
• New Maps of Hell - Kingsley Amis (non-fiction)
• The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - William L. Shirer
• Take a Girl Like You - Kingsley Amis
• To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
• The Torch - Wilder Penfield
• Truth and Method - Hans-Georg Gadamer
• The Violent Bear It Away - Flannery O'Connor
• The White Stone - Carlo Coccioli
• What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? - Henry Farrell

Births

• January 1 - Helen Fielding, author
• November 10 - Neil Gaiman, author

Deaths

• January 4 - Albert Camus
• January 12 - Nevil Shute, writer
• January 14 - Ralph Chubb, poet
• January 28 - Zora Neale Hurston
• November 28 - Richard Wright, author

Awards

• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Joseph Krumgold, Onion John
• Nobel Prize for literature: Saint-John Perse
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Jerome Weidman, George Abbott for book' Jerry Bock for music, and Sheldon Harnick for lyrics, Fiorello!
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Allen Drury - Advise and Consent
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: W. D. Snodgrass: Heart's Needle