This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1938.

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• January
  • The John Dos Passos trilogy U.S.A. is published, containing his novels The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936).
  • Samuel Beckett is stabbed in the chest in Paris and nearly killed.
• February 21 – The gay American writer and composer Paul Bowles marries the lesbian American writer Jane Auer at a Reformed Church in Manhattan.
• March 7 – Samuel Beckett's first completed novel Murphy is published in London.
• July 11 – The first live drama adaptation in Orson Welles' The Mercury Theatre on the Air series on CBS Radio in the United States is broadcast: Bram Stoker's Dracula.
• August – Muslims protest in London against passages they see as disrespectful to their religion in H. G. Wells' A Short History of the World (1922).^[1]
• September 13 – The first production in Britain of a play by Bertolt Brecht, Mrs Carrar's Rifles, opens at the Unity Theatre, London.
• October 30 – Orson Welles' radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds (with script by Howard Koch) is broadcast in The Mercury Theatre on the Air series.
• December 24 – Jorge Luis Borges is injured in an accident and develops blood poisoning. While recovering the following year he will write the first short story in his later characteristic style.
• Uncertain dates
  • The first complete performance of both parts of Goethe's Faust (1808/32) is given at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland.^[2]
  • The avant-garde musician and theoretician Pierre Schaeffer begins his writing career as an essayist for a number of French musical journals.

• January 2 – Hans Herbjørnsrud, Norwegian short story writer
• January 5 – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (also known as James Ngigi), Kenyan novelist
• January 6 – Mario Rodríguez Cobos ("Silo"), Argentine author and spiritualist (died 2010)
• January 20 – Liz Calder, English publisher and editor
• February 7 – Andrea Newman, English novelist and screenwriter (died 2019)
• February 9 – Jovette Marchessault, French Canadian writer and artist (died 2012)
• February 12
  • Judy Blume, American children's author
  • Tor Obrestad, Norwegian novelist, poet and documentary writer (died 2020)
• February 22 – Ishmael Reed, American poet, essayist and novelist
• March 1 – Michael Kurland, American author of sci-fi and detective fiction
• March 14 – Eleanor Bron, English humorous writer and actress
• March 24 – Ian Hamilton, English critic, biographer and poet (died 2001)
• March 27 – Hansjörg Schneider, Swiss novelist (died 2016)
• April 20 – Chiung Yao, Taiwanese romance novelist
• April 25 – John Nagenda, Ugandan writer and sportsman (died 2023)
• April 30 – Larry Niven, American sci-fi author
• May 13 – Norma Klein, American author (died 1989)
• May 15 – Nancy Garden, American author (died 2014)^[5]
• May 16 – Marco Aurelio Denegri, Peruvian literature critic, television host and sexologist (died 2018)^[6]
• May 25
  • Raymond Carver, American short-story writer and poet (died 1988)
  • Margaret Forster, English novelist and biographer (died 2016)
• May 26 – Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, Russian novelist and playwright
• June 5 – M. K. Wren (Martha Kay Renfroe), American novelist (died 2016)
• June 16 – Joyce Carol Oates, American novelist
• June 24 – Lawrence Block, American crime fiction writer
• June 26 – Maria Velho da Costa, Portuguese writer (died 2020)
• July 15 – Josephine Cox, English novelist (died 2020)
• July 19
  • Nicholas Bethell, English historian and politician (died 2007)
  • Dom Moraes, Indian poet and columnist (died 2004)
  • Tom Raworth, English poet (died 2017)
  • Mary-Kay Wilmers, American-born editor
• July 28 – Robert Hughes, Australian critic and historian (died 2012)
• August 15 – Janusz Zajdel, Polish writer (died 1985)
• August 21 – Mudrooroo (Colin Johnson), Australian novelist (died 2019)
• August 30 – Dorota Terakowska, Polish writer and journalist, author of fantasy books for children and young adults (died 2004)
• September 3 – Caryl Churchill, English dramatist
• September 12 – Richard Booth, Welsh bookseller (died 2019)
• September 15 – Charles L. Mee, American dramatist
• September 18 – Poornachandra Tejaswi, Kannada writer (died 2007)
• September 19 – Keorapetse Kgositsile, South African Poet Laureate (died 2018)
• October 12 – Anne Perry (Juliet Marion Hulme), English historical novelist (died 2023)
• October 13 – Hugo Young, English journalist (died 2003)
• October 17 – Les Murray, Australian poet (died 2019)
• October 19 – Allan Massie, Singapore-born Scottish writer
• November 3 – Terrence McNally, American playwright (died 2020)
• November 4 – Daniel Snowman, English non-fiction writer and historian
• December 9 – Willi Glasauer, German artist and illustrator
• December 14 – Leonardo Boff (Genézio Darci Boff), Brazilian philosopher and theologian
• December 21 – Frank Moorhouse, Australian journalist, author and screenwriter (died 2022)
• December 31 – Basudeb Dasgupta, Bengali novelist (died 2005)
• unknown date – Gabriel Ruhumbika, Tanzanian novelist^[7]

• January 4 – Paola Drigo, Italian writer (born 1876)
• January 16 – Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay (Sarat Chandra Chattergee), Bengali novelist (born 1876)
• January 19 – Branislav Nušić, Serbian novelist and dramatist (born 1864)
• January 29 – Armando Palacio Valdés, Spanish novelist and critic (born 1853)
• February 13 – Momčilo Nastasijević, Serbian poet, novelist and dramatist (born 1894)
• March 6 – Eva Allen Alberti, American dramatics teacher (born 1856)
• March 27 — Helen M. Winslow, American editor, author and publisher (born 1851)
• March 31 – Willem Kloos, Dutch poet and critic (born 1859)
• April 19 – Sir Henry Newbolt, English poet (born 1862)
• April 21 – Lady Ottoline Morrell, English literary hostess (born 1873)
• May 26 – James Forbes, Canadian American dramatist and screenwriter (born 1871)
• June 9 – Ovid Densusianu, Romanian poet, philologist, and literary historian (born 1873)
• June 26
  • James Weldon Johnson, American politician, poet and activist (born 1871)
  • E. V. Lucas, English essayist and biographer, 70
• July 21 – Owen Wister, American Western fiction writer and historian (born 1860)
• August 7 – Konstantin Stanislavski, Russian theatre director (born 1863)
• August 26 – Millosh Gjergj Nikolla, Albanian poet and writer (tuberculosis, born 1911)
• September 15 – Thomas Wolfe, American novelist (tuberculosis, born 1900)
• October 3 – Olivia Shakespear, British novelist, playwright and patron of the arts (born 1863)
• October 27 – Lascelles Abercrombie, English poet and literary critic (born 1881)
• December 13 – Virginia Frazer Boyle, American author and poet (born 1863)
• December 23 – Robert Herrick, American realist novelist (born 1868)
• December 25 – Karel Čapek, Czech science fiction author and dramatist (pneumonia, born 1890)
• December 27 – Osip Mandelstam, Russian poet and essayist (in detention, born 1891)

• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Noel Streatfeild, The Circus Is Coming
• Hawthornden Prize – David Jones, In Parenthesis
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: C. S. Forester, A Ship of the Line and Flying Colours
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Sir Edmund Chambers, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Kate Seredy, The White Stag
• Newdigate prize: Michael Thwaites
• Nobel Prize in literature: Pearl S. Buck
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Thornton Wilder, Our Town
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Marya Zaturenska, Cold Morning Sky
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: John Phillips Marquand, The Late George Apley