The year 1958 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• August 18 - Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in United States.
• First volume of The Civil War by Shelby Foote is published.
• Rumours of a library ban on Enid Blyton's books in New Zealand.
• Herbert Marcuse begins teaching at Brandeis University.
• Jack Kerouac writes and narrates the "beat" movie, Pull My Daisy.
• Ken Kesey is awarded a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship to enrol in the creative writing program at Stanford University.
• Mervyn Peake begins to develop Parkinson's Disease.

New books

• Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart
• Kingsley Amis - I Like It Here
• Jorge Amado - Gabriela, Cravo e Canela (Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon)
• H. E. Bates - The Darling Buds of May
• Thomas Berger - Crazy in Berlin
• James Blish - A Case of Conscience
• Joseph Payne Brennan - Nine Horrors and a Dream
• Algis Budrys
  • Man of Earth
  • Who?
• Truman Capote - Breakfast at Tiffany's
• John Dickson Carr - The Dead Man's Knock
• Raymond Chandler - Playback
• Agatha Christie - Ordeal by Innocence
• Richard Condon - The Oldest Confession
• A. J. Cronin
  • The Innkeeper's Wife
  • The Northern Light
• L. Sprague de Camp - An Elephant for Aristotle
• Patrick Dennis - Around the World with Auntie Mame
• August Derleth
  • The Mask of Cthulhu
  • The Return of Solar Pons
• Lawrence Durrell
  • Balthazar
  • Mountolive
• Ian Fleming - Dr. No
• Peter George - Red Alert
• Graham Greene - Our Man in Havana
• Cyril Hare - He Should Have Died Hereafter
• Marlen Haushofer - We Murder Stella
• Georgette Heyer - Venetia
• Harold L. Humes - The Underground City
• Jack Kerouac - The Dharma Bums
• Frances Parkinson Keyes - Victorine
• Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa - The Leopard (published posthumously)
• John D. MacDonald - The Executioners
• Ross Macdonald - The Doomsters
• Richard Matheson - A Stir of Echoes
• Alberto Moravia - La ciociara
• R. K. Narayan - The Guide
• Kenzabur e - Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids
• Mary Renault - The King Must Die
• Anya Seton - The Winthrop Woman
• Dr. Seuss - Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories
• Alan Sillitoe - Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
• Terry Southern (as Maxwell Kenton) - Candy
• Rex Stout
  • And Four to Go
  • Champagne for One
• Robert Traver - Anatomy of a Murder
• Jack Vance - The Languages of Pao
• Rex Warner - Young Caesar
• Jerome Weidman - The Enemy Camp

New drama

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• Samuel Beckett - Krapp's Last Tape
• Brendan Behan - The Hostage
• Max Frisch - The Fire Raisers and Phiipp Hotz's Fury
• Jean Genet - The Blacks (first published)
• Elmer Rice - Cue for Passion
• Peter Shaffer - Five Finger Exercise
• N. F. Simpson - The Hole
• Arnold Wesker - Chicken Soup with Barley (first performed)
• Tennessee Williams - Suddenly, Last Summer
• Mohan Rakesh - Ashadh Ka Ek Din</onlyinclude>

Poetry

• Eli Siegel - Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana: Poems
• Clark Ashton Smith - Spells and Philtres

Non-fiction

• Brendan Behan - Borstal Boy
• Shelby Foote – The Civil War: A Narrative – Vol 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville
• John Kenneth Galbraith - The Affluent Society
• J. Edgar Hoover - Masters of Deceit
• Aldous Huxley - Brave New World Revisited
• Claude L vi-Strauss – Structural Anthropology
• John Maynard Smith - The Theory of Evolution
• John Steinbeck – Once There Was A War
• Raymond Williams – Culture and Society 1780-1950

Births

• April 15 - Benjamin Zephaniah, dub poet
• May - Roddy Doyle, novelist
• June 10 - James F. Conant, philosopher
• July 5 - Veronica Guerin, journalist (died 1996)
• date unknown
  • Robert Antoni, novelist
  • Lionel Fogarty, poet
  • Flora Fraser, biographer
  • Wayne Johnston, novelist
  • Margaret Smith, poet
  • Nega Mezlekia, Ethiopian writer

Deaths

• February 4 - Henry Kuttner, science fiction author
• March 21 - Cyril M. Kornbluth, science fiction writer
• March 24 - Seamus O'Sullivan, poet
• April 7 - Elliot Paul, American writer
• May 5 - James Branch Cabell, fantasy fiction author
• June 28 - Alfred Noyes, poet
• September 11 - Robert W. Service, poet
• October 24 - George Edward Moore, philosopher
• October 30 - Rose Macaulay, novelist

Awards

• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Philippa Pearce, Tom's Midnight Garden
• Hugo Award for Best Novel: Fritz Leiber, The Big Time
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Angus Wilson, The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Joyce Hemlow, The History of Fanny Burney
• Miles Franklin Award: Randolph Stow, To the Islands
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Harold Keith, Rifles for Watie
• Newdigate prize: Jon Stallworthy
• Nobel Prize for literature: Boris Leonidovich Pasternak
• Premio Nadal: J. Vidal Cadellans, No era de los nuestros
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Ketti Frings, Look Homeward, Angel
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: James Agee, A Death In The Family
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Robert Penn Warren, Promises: Poems 1954-1956

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