The year 1938 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• The trilogy, U.S.A. by John Dos Passos, is published containing his three novels The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936).
• Jorge Luis Borges is injured in an accident and develops blood poisoning in December. While recovering next year he will write the first short story in his later characteristic style.
• Samuel Beckett's first completed novel Murphy is published.

New books

• Margery Allingham - The Fashion in Shrouds
• Eric Ambler
  • Cause for Alarm
  • Epitaph for A Spy
• Vladimir Bartol - Alamut
• Elizabeth Bowen - The Death of the Heart
• Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan and the Forbidden City
• Taylor Caldwell - Dynasty of Death
• John Dickson Carr writing as "Carter Dickson"
  • The Judas Window
  • Death in Five Boxes
• Peter Cheyney - Can Ladies Kill?
• Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot's Christmas
• René Daumal - A Night of Serious Drinking
• Isak Dinesen - Out of Africa
• John Dos Passos - U.S.A. trilogy
• Daphne du Maurier - Rebecca
• Lawrence Durrell - The Black Book
• Rachel Field - All This and Heaven Too
• Robert Graves - Count Belisarius
• Graham Greene - Brighton Rock
• Eric Knight - Lassie Come-Home
• C. S. Lewis - Out of the Silent Planet
• Henry Miller - Tropic of Capricorn
• Vladimir Nabokov
  • The Gift
  • Invitation to a Beheading
• John O'Hara - Hope of Heaven
• Ellery Queen
  • The Devil To Pay
  • The Four of Hearts
• Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - The Yearling
• Clayton Rawson - Death from a Top Hat
• Emilio Lussu - Un anno sull'altopiano
• Ayn Rand - Anthem
• Jean-Paul Sartre - La Nausée
• Kate Seredy - The White Stag
• Esphyr Slobodkina - Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business
• Rex Stout - Too Many Cooks
• B. Traven - The Bridge in The Jungle
• S. S. Van Dine - The Gracie Allen Murder Case
• Evelyn Waugh - Scoop
• Nathanael West - The Day of the Locust
• T. H. White - The Sword in the Stone
• Gale Wilhelm - Torchlight to Valhalla
• Virginia Woolf - Three Guineas

New drama

• Jean Anouilh - Thieves' Carnival (Le bal des voleurs)
• Robert Ardrey - Casey Jones
• Patrick Hamilton - Gas Light
• Kaj Munk - Han sidder ved Smeltediglen
• Robert E. Sherwood - Abe Lincoln in Illinois
• Rodolfo Usigli - The Gesticulator
• Thornton Wilder - Our Town
• Emlyn Williams - The Corn is Green

Poetry

• Alfred Kreymborg - The Planets: A Modern Allegory (radio play in verse)

Non-fiction

• Hall Caine - Life of Christ - published post-humously
• Cyril Connolly - Enemies of Promise
• Geoffrey Faber - The Romance of a Bookshop 1904-1938
• Robert McAlmon - Being Geniuses Together, 1920-1930
• Thomas Mann - The Coming Victory of Democracy
• George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia

Births

• February 12 - Judy Blume, children's author
• April 29 - Larry Niven, sci-fi author
• May 13 - Norma Klein, author
• July 19
  • Nicholas Bethell, historian
  • Dom Moraes, poet and columnist
• October 12 - Anne Perry, historical novelist
• October 13 - Hugo Young, journalist
• December 14 - Leonardo Boff, philosopher and theologian
• date unknown
  • Christopher Booker, journalist and editor
  • Charles L. Mee, dramatist
  • M. K. Wren, novelist

Deaths

• January 19 - Branislav Nu?i?, novelist and dramatist
• March 1 - Gabriele D'Annunzio, poet and novelist
• April 19 - Sir Henry Newbolt, poet
• April 21 - Lady Ottoline Morrell, literary hostess
• May 26 - James Forbes, dramatist and screenwriter
• June 26 - James Weldon Johnson
• June 26 - E. V. Lucas, essayist and biographer
• August 7 - Konstantin Stanislavski, theatre director
• September 15 - Thomas Wolfe, novelist
• December 25 - Karel ?apek, science fiction author and dramatist

Awards

• Hawthornden Prize - David Jones for 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 for 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

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