This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1949.

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• January 11 – Bertolt Brecht's play Mother Courage and Her Children (Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder), 1939, is first performed in Germany, at the Deutsches Theater in East Berlin, with his wife Helene Weigel in the title role and staged with his Verfremdungseffekt ("distancing effect"). This marks the origin of the Berliner Ensemble.
• January 19 – The Poe Toaster first appears, at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe.^[1]
• January 31 – Late Night Serial, a pilot for the U.K. radio series Book at Bedtime, begins on the BBC Light Programme with a reading of John Buchan's novel The Three Hostages.^[2]
• February – Théâtre du Rideau Vert, the first professional French-language theatre in Canada, gives its first performance.^[3]
• February 10 – Arthur Miller's tragedy Death of a Salesman opens at the Morosco Theatre on Broadway in New York City with Lee J. Cobb in the title rôle of Willy Loman. It will run for 742 performances.^[4]
• February 19 – Ezra Pound is awarded the first Bollingen Prize in poetry, by the Bollingen Foundation and Yale University.
• March – Poet Pablo Neruda flees Chile over the Lilpela Pass through the Andes to Argentina on horseback carrying a manuscript of his Canto General.
• April 14
  • Roy Campbell punches Stephen Spender on the nose at a poetry reading in London.^[5]
  • N'Ko alphabet devised by Solomana Kante as a writing system and literary language for the Manding languages of West Africa.
• May – Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and his wife Caitlin settle at the Boat House, Laugharne, in South Wales.
• June 8 – George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is published in London by Secker & Warburg.
• June
  • Oxford University Dramatic Society production of Shakespeare's The Tempest beside Worcester College lake, directed by Nevill Coghill.^[6]
  • The final part of Jean-Paul Sartre's Les Chemins de la Liberté (The Roads to Freedom) trilogy is published. A projected fourth volume is never completed.^[7]
• Summer
  • The first Cheltenham Literature Festival is held in England, so making it the longest-running event of its kind in the world.^[8]
  • Street & Smith ceases to publish its pulp magazines in the United States.
• September 26 – Samuel Putnam publishes his new translation of Don Quixote, the first in contemporary English. It is instantly acclaimed and is still in print as of 2008.
• October – Publication begins in Italy of L'inferno di Topolino, a graphic parody of Dante's Inferno featuring Mickey Mouse with text and verse by Guido Martina.^[9]
• October 5 – American writer Helene Hanff writes her first letter from New York City to the London antiquarian book dealers Marks & Co, a correspondence eventually collected as 84, Charing Cross Road.
• October 13 – George Orwell marries Sonia Brownell while confined in University College Hospital, London, where he will die three months later.^[10]
• unknown dates
  • Arthur C. Clarke becomes an assistant editor of Science Abstracts.^[11]
  • Radclyffe Hall's lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness, convicted of obscenity in the United Kingdom on first publication in 1928, is republished in the UK posthumously by Falcon Press, with no legal challenge made against it.^[12]
  • A statue of the folk poet Larin Paraske is erected in Helsinki.^[13]
  • Enid Blyton's children's books – Little Noddy Goes to Toyland, the first to introduce the title character, and The Secret Seven, first in the eponymous series – are published in the UK.^[14]

• January 1
  • Olivia Goldsmith, American author (died 2004)
  • Radu Țuculescu, Romanian novelist, dramatist and theater director
• January 12 – Haruki Murakami (村上 春樹), Japanese novelist
• January 16 – John Guy, Australian-born British historian and biographer
• January 26 – Jonathan Carroll, American author of fantasy fiction
• January 27 – Ethan Mordden, American author
• February 4 – Mark D. Devlin, American memoirist (died 2005)
• February 23 – César Aira, Argentinian writer
• March 22 – Brian Hanrahan, English journalist (died 2010)^[18]
• March 26 – Patrick Süskind, German novelist
• April 11 – Dorothy Allison, American novelist and campaigner
• April 25 – James Fenton, English journalist, poet, critic and academic
• May 25 – Jamaica Kincaid, Antiguan-born novelist
• June 5 – Ken Follett, English novelist
• June 14 – Harry Turtledove, American novelist
• June 21 – John Agard, Guyanese poet
• July 1 – Denis Johnson, American poet, novelist (Tree of Smoke) and short story writer ("Jesus' Son") (died 2017)^[19]
• July 5 – Jill Murphy, English children's writer and illustrator (died 2021)
• July 15 – Richard Russo, American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist
• August 3 – Peter Gutmann, American journalist
• August 9 – Slavko Ćuruvija, Serbian journalist and newspaper publisher (died 1999)
• August 17 – Julian Fellowes, English novelist and screenwriter
• August 25 – Martin Amis, English novelist and critic (died 2023)
• September 10 – Bill O'Reilly, American political journalist and author
• September 13 – Linda Colley, English historian
• September 19 – Jimmy McGovern, English screenwriter
• September 26 – Jane Smiley, American novelist
• October 4 – Luis Sepúlveda, Chilean author and journalist (died 2020)
• October 5 – Peter Ackroyd, English biographer, novelist and critic
• November 2 – Lois McMaster Bujold, American author of science fiction and fantasy
• November 24 – Erwin Neutzsky-Wulff, Danish philosopher
• December 6 – Élmer Mendoza, Mexican fiction writer
• December 9 – Eileen Myles, American poet
• December 22 – David Gilmour, Canadian novelist
• December 24 – Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Mexican-born architectural historian

• January 15 – Mary Lewis Langworthy, American pageant writer (born 1872)
• January 21 – William Price Drury, English novelist, playwright and officer (born 1861)
• February 1 – N. D. Cocea, Romanian novelist, critic and journalist (born 1880)
• February 11 – Axel Munthe, Swedish autobiographer and psychiatrist (born 1857)
• March 2
  • Alberto Gerchunoff, Argentine writer (born 1883)
  • Sarojini Naidu, Indian poet and politician (born 1879)
• May 6 – Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgian poet, playwright and Nobel Laureate (born 1862)
• May 21 – Klaus Mann, German-born American novelist (overdose, born 1906)
• June 10 – Sigrid Undset, Norwegian author and Nobel Laureate (born 1882)^[20]
• June 11 – Oton Župančič, Slovene poet, translator and dramatist (born 1878)
• June 14 – Russell Doubleday, American author and publisher (born 1872)
• July 2 – Elsa Bernstein (Ernst Rosmer), German dramatist (born 1866)
• August 2 – Hermann Grab, Bohemian German-language novelist (born 1903)
• August 8 – E. H. Young, English novelist (born 1880)
• August 16 – Margaret Mitchell, American novelist (road accident, born 1900)
• September 4 – Herbert Eulenberg, German poet and dramatist (born 1876)
• September 6 – Lucien Descaves, French novelist (born 1861)
• September 19
  • Will Cuppy, American humorist (born 1884)
  • George Shiels, Irish dramatist (born 1881)
• September 21 – Jorge Cáceres, Chilean poet and artist (born 1923)
• October 20 – Jacques Copeau, French actor and dramatist (born 1879)
• October 24
  • Thomas Rowland Hughes, Welsh-language novelist, dramatist and poet (multiple sclerosis, born 1903)
  • Yaroslav Halan, Ukrainian playwright, translator, and publicist (homicide, born 1902)
• December 7 – Rex Beach, American author (born 1877)
• December 12 – Harriet Ford, American actress and playwright (born 1863)
• December 28 – Hervey Allen, American novelist (heart attack, born 1889)

• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Agnes Allen, The Story of Your Home
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Emma Smith, The Far Cry
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: John Connell, W. E. Henley
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Marguerite Henry, King of the Wind
• Nobel Prize for literature: William Faulkner
• Order of Merit: Bertrand Russell
• Premio Nadal: Jose Suárez Carreño, Las últimas horas
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: James Gould Cozzens, Guard of Honor
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Peter Viereck, Terror and Decorum