May 14 – The Battle of the Netherlands ends with the surrender of the main Dutch forces to Nazi German invaders. This evening, the gay Dutch Jewish writer Jacob Hiegentlich takes poison, dying four days later aged 33.
June 5 – The English novelist J. B. Priestley broadcasts his first Sunday evening radio Postscript, "An excursion to hell", on the BBC Home Service in the U.K., marking the role of pleasure steamers in the Dunkirk evacuation, which ended the day before.
October 4 – Brian O'Nolan's first "Cruiskeen Lawn" humorous column is published in The Irish Times (Dublin). In the second column he assumes the pseudonym Myles na gCopaleen. The original columns are composed in Irish. He continues the column until the year of his death in 1966.
December – Penguin Books launches its Puffin Books children's imprint in the United Kingdom with War on Land by James Holland.[5]
The Russian poet Anna Akhmatova's collection From Six Books appears in the Soviet Union, but distribution is soon suspended, copies pulped and remaining issues prohibited.[9]
Wills & Hepworth of Loughborough begins publishing Ladybird Books in the United Kingdom in a new format,[10] with Bunnykin's Picnic Party: a story in verse for children with illustrations in colour.[11]
^Sutherland, John; Fender, Stephen (2011). "29 December". Love, Sex, Death & Words: Surprising Tales from a Year in Literature. London: Icon. ISBN 978-184831-247-0.
^Royle, Trevor (1997-03-07). "Obituary: Wing Cdr Douglas Blackwood". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 2022-05-01. Retrieved 2014-04-11.
^Romain Hilgert: Les journaux au Luxembourg. 1704-2004 Archived 2009-12-29 at the Wayback Machine, p. 98-99.
^Martin, R. Eden (April 2007). "Collecting Anna Akhmatova" (PDF). The Caxtonian. 15 (4). Caxton Club: 9. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
^Bill Rees (17 October 2011). The Loneliness of the Long Distance Book Runner. Parthian Books. p. 65. ISBN 978-1-908946-04-1.
^Johnson, Lorraine; Alderson, Brian (2014). The Ladybird Story: children's books for everyone. London: British Library. ISBN 978-0-7123-5728-9.
^Attridge, Derek (2004). J. M. Coetzee and the Ethics of Reading: Literature in the Event. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 94. ISBN 978-0-226-03117-0.
^Doyle, Martin (13 May 2021). "Seamus Deane, leading Irish writer and critic, has died aged 81". The Irish Times. Retrieved 13 May 2021.
^"Angela Carter". The British Library. Retrieved 27 March 2019.
^"French author Annie Ernaux wins 2022 Nobel Prize for Literature". Onmanorama. 2022-10-06. Retrieved 2022-10-06.
^"Selma Lagerlöf | Swedish author". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
^Lawrence Normand (1 September 2003). W.H. Davies. Seren. p. 152. ISBN 978-1-85411-261-3.
^Matthew J. Bruccoli; Judith Baughman (2009). F. Scott Fitzgerald in the Marketplace: The Auction and Dealer Catalogues, 1935-2006. University of South Carolina Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-1-57003-799-3.
^Gisèle Sapiro (23 April 2014). The French Writers' War, 1940-1953. Duke University Press. p. 540. ISBN 978-0-8223-9512-6.