This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1972.

• May 22 – Cecil Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, dies at Lemmons, the home of novelists Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard in North London, which he has shared with his wife and son – actors Jill Balcon and Daniel Day-Lewis – and at weekends with Kingsley's writer son Martin Amis and others.^[1]
• June 4 – The poet Joseph Brodsky is expelled from the Soviet Union.^[2]
• October 6–7 – The new Staatstheater Darmstadt is opened.
• October 8 – The play Sizwe Bansi is Dead has its first performance at the Space Theatre (Cape Town), South Africa, before a multiracial audience. Playwright Athol Fugard directs, with co-writers John Kani and Winston Ntshona in lead roles.
• October 10 – Sir John Betjeman is declared Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, the first knight ever to be so.^[3]
• "The three Marias", Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta and Maria Velho da Costa, publish in Lisbon New Portuguese Letters (Novas Cartas Portuguesas), a collection challenging the Estado Novo dictatorship, to immediate success,^[4] but banned by censors as "pornographic and an offense to public morals".^[5][6][7][8] Its authors are imprisoned for "abuse of freedom of the press" and "outrage to public decency".^[9][10][6] Only after the 1974 "Carnation Revolution" does their trial end with the authors pardoned and the judge assigning "outstanding literary merit" to the book.^[10]
• unknown date – Somali Latin alphabet is introduced.^[11]

• January 1 – Maile Meloy, American novelist and short story writer
• February 11 – Noboru Yamaguchi (山口 登), Japanese light novelist and game scenario author (died 2013)^[28]
• March 29 - Ernest Cline, American science-fiction novelist and screenwriter
• May 22 – Max Brooks, American horror author and screenwriter^[29]
• May 27 – Maggie O'Farrell, Northern Ireland-born novelist
• July 21 – Josué Guébo, Ivorian writer and academic
• August 6 - Paolo Bacigalupi, American science-fiction and fantasy writer
• August 18 – Adda Djørup, Danish poet and fiction writer
• August 26 - Paula Hawkins, British novelist and journalist
• September 6 – China Miéville, English science fiction novelist^[30]
• September 19
  • Cheryl B (Cheryl Burke), American poet and spoken word artist
  • N. K. Jemisin, American science fiction and fantasy writer
• November 4 – Yiyun Li (李翊雲), Chinese American writer of fiction in English
• November 26 - James Dashner, American writer of speculative fiction
• December 20 – Gen Urobuchi, Japanese novelist and screenwriter
• unknown dates
  • Shimon Adaf, Israeli poet and novelist
  • Zinnie Harris, British dramatist^[31]
  • Rabee Jaber, Lebanese novelist^[32]
  • Charlotte Mendelson, English novelist
  • Marente de Moor, Dutch novelist and columnist
  • Ben Rice, English novelist
  • Fran Wilde, American science fiction novelist

• January 1 – Eberhard Wolfgang Möller, German playwright and poet (born 1906)
• January 7 – John Berryman, American poet (suicide; born 1914)^[33]
• January 8 – Kenneth Patchen, American poet and author (born 1911)^[34]
• January 17 – Betty Smith, American novelist (born 1896)^[35]
• February 2 – Natalie Clifford Barney, American writer and patron (born 1876)^[36]
• February 15 – Edgar Snow, American political writer (cancer, born 1905)^[37]
• March 4 – Richard Church, English poet and novelist (born 1893^[38]
• March 9 – Violet Trefusis, English writer (born 1894)^[39]
• March 11 – Fredric Brown, American genre novelist (born 1906
• March 14 – Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Italian publisher (born 1926)
• April 10 – Laurence Manning, Canadian science fiction author (born 1899)
• April 16 – Yasunari Kawabata (川端 康成), Japanese fiction writer, Nobel laureate (born 1899)
• May 22 – Cecil Day-Lewis, Irish-born Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and (as Nicholas Blake) novelist (born 1904)^[40]
• May 28 – Violette Leduc, French novelist and memoirist (born 1907)^[41]
• June 24 – R. F. Delderfield, English novelist and playwright (born 1912)^[42]
• August 2 – Helen Hoyt (Helen Lyman), American poet (born 1887)
• August 9 – Ernst von Salomon, German writer (born 1902)
• August 17 – Alexander Vampilov, Russian dramatist (drowned fishing, born 1937)
• August 22 – Ernestine Hill, Australian travel writer (born 1899)
• September 21 – Henry de Montherlant, French novelist, dramatist and essayist (suicide, born 1895)
• September 27 – S. R. Ranganathan, Indian mathematician and librarian (born 1892)
• October 5 – Ivan Yefremov, Soviet paleontologist and science fiction author (born 1908)^[43]
• November 1 – Ezra Pound, American poet (born 1885)^[44]
• November 12 – José Nucete Sardi, Venezuelan historian and diplomat (born 1897)^[45]
• November 29 – Victor Bridges (Victor George de Freyne), English genre novelist, playwright and poet (born 1878)
• December 10 – Mark Van Doren, American poet, writer and critic (born 1894)
• December 13 – L. P. Hartley, English novelist (born 1895)^[46]
• December 23 – Abraham Joshua Heschel, Polish-born American theologian and rabbi (born 1907)
• unknown dates
  • Wasif Jawhariyyeh, Palestinian Arab diarist, poet and composer (born 1897)^[47]
  • Donar Munteanu, Romanian poet and magistrate (born 1886)

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Heinrich Böll

• Hahn, Daniel (2015). The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (2nd ed.). Oxford. University Press. ISBN 9780198715542.