The year 1972 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Fiction

• Richard Adams - Watership Down
• Jorge Amado - Teresa Batista Cansada da Guerra (Tereza Batista: Home from the Wars)
• Isaac Asimov - The Gods Themselves
• Richard Bach - Jonathan Livingston Seagull
• Italo Calvino - Invisible Cities
• Taylor Caldwell - Captains and the Kings
• Angela Carter - The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman
• Brian Cleeve - Tread Softly in this Place
• Roald Dahl - Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
• Robertson Davies - The Manticore
• R. F. Delderfield - To Serve Them All My Days
• Frederick Forsyth - The Odessa File
• Günter Grass - Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke - (From the Diary of a Snail)
• James Herriot - All Creatures Great and Small
• Georgette Heyer - Lady of Quality
• George V. Higgins - The Friends of Eddie Coyle
• P. D. James - An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
• Dan Jenkins - Semi-Tough
• Oe Kenzaburo - The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away
• Carl Jacobi - Disclosures in Scarlet
• Ira Levin - The Stepford Wives
• Frank Belknap Long - The Rim of the Unknown
• Robert Ludlum - The Osterman Weekend
• John D. MacDonald - The Scarlet Ruse
• David McCullough - The Great Bridge
• Barry N. Malzberg - Beyond Apollo
• Vladimir Nabokov - Transparent Things
• Chaim Potok - My Name is Asher Lev
• Mary Renault - The Persian Boy
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - August 1914
• Arkady and Boris Strugatsky - Roadside Picnic
• Hunter S. Thompson - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
• Irving Wallace - The Word

Non-fiction

• L. Sprague de Camp - Great Cities of the Ancient World
• L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp - Darwin and His Great Discovery
• Nena and George O'Neill - Open Marriage: A New Life Style for Couples^[1]
• John Howard Yoder - The Politics of Jesus
• Carlos Castenada - Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan

Drama

• Alan Ayckbourn - Absurd Person Singular

Births

• January 1 - Maile Meloy
• February 11 - Noboru Yamaguchi
• September 6 - China Miéville

Deaths

• February 15 - Edgar Snow, journalist
• March 4 - Richard Church, poet and novelist^[2]
• March 9 - Violet Trefusis, English writer and lover of Vita Sackville-West
• March 11 - Fredric Brown, science fiction and mystery author
• April 10 - Laurence Manning, science fiction author
• May 22 - Cecil Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate
• June 24 - R. F. Delderfield, novelist and historian
• August 22 - Ernestine Hill, travel writer
• September 21 - Henry de Montherlant, essayist
• September 27 - S. R. Ranganathan, influential librarian
• December 10 - Mark Van Doren, poet
• December 13 - L. P. Hartley, novelist
• December 23 - Abraham Joshua Heschel, theologian

Awards

• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for the Novel, Eudora Welty
• Man Booker Prize: John Berger, G.
• Cholmondeley Award: Molly Holden, Tom Raworth, Patricia Whittaker
• Carnegie Medal: Richard Adams, Watership Down
• Eric Gregory Award: Tony Curtis, Richard Burns, Brian Oxley, Andrew Greig, Robin Lee, Paul Muldoon
• Hugo Award: Philip José Farmer, To Your Scattered Bodies Go
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: John Berger, G
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Quentin Bell, Virginia Woolf
• Nebula Award: Isaac Asimov, The Gods Themselves
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Robert C. O'Brien, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
• Nobel Prize in Literature: Heinrich Böll
• Premio Nadal: José María Carrascal, Grrovy
• Prix Goncourt: Jean Carrière, L'Epervier de Maheux
• Prix Médicis: Maurice Clavel, Le Tiers des étoiles
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Wallace Stegner - Angle of Repose
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: James Wright, Collected Poems
• Viareggio Prize: Romano Bilenchi, Il bottone di Stalingrado

Other events

References

fr:1972 en littérature pl:1972 w literaturze pt:1972 na literatura sq:1972 në literaturë sv:Litteraturåret 1972