1941 in literature

• Under the general editorship of Edmund Wilson , Francis Scott Fitzgerald ’s unfinished novel The Last Tycoon was published.

• Nobel Prize in literature - not awarded

USSR

• Stalin Prize in Literature :
  • Fiction:
    • First degree: Alexey Tolstoy (the novel “Peter I”), Sergey Sergeev-Tsensky (the novel “Sevastopol Strada”), Mikhail Sholokhov (the novel “The Quiet Don ”).
    • Second degree: Nikolay Virta (novel “Loneliness”), Leo Kiacheli (novel “Guadi Bigva”), Alexey Novikov-Surf (2nd part of the novel “ Tsushima ”).
  • Poetry:
    • First degree: Nikolay Aseev (poem “Mayakovsky Begins”), Yanka Kupala (collection of poems “From the Heart”), Pavlo Tychyna (collection of poems “The feeling of a single family”).
    • Second degree: Dzhambul Dzhabaev (public works), Vasily Lebedev-Kumach (poetic texts of well-known songs), Georgy Leonidze (poem “The Childhood of the Leader”), Sergei Mikhalkov (poem for children), Alexander Tvardovsky (poem “The Country of Muravia”).
  • Dramaturia:
    • First degree: Alexander Korneichuk (plays “Plato Krechet” and “Bogdan Khmelnitsky”), Konstantin Trenyov (play “Lyubov Yarovaya”), Nikolai Pogodin (play “The Man with a Gun”).
    • Second degree: Samad Vurgun (play “Vagif”), Kondrat Krapiva (play “Who Laughs Last”), Vladimir Solovyov (play “Field Marshal Kutuzov”).

United States

• Pulitzer Prize :
  • in the category of artwork written by an American writer, was not assigned
  • in the category of drama for the theater - Robert Sherwood , "May the Night Perish"
  • in poetry category by Leonard Bacon, Sunderland Capture

France

• Goncourt Prize - Henri Purra , "March Wind"
• Renodo Prize - Paul Mousset, Quand le temps travaillait pour nous
• Femina Prize - not awarded

Novels

• “ Evil Under the Sun ” ( eng. Evil Under the Sun ) and “ H or M? "( English N or M? ) - Agatha Christie's detective novels
• "She herself was surprised" ( eng. Herself Surprised ) - a novel by Joyce Carey .
• "The case of permanent suicide" ( English. The Case of the Constant Suicides ), "Death changes everything" ( English. Death Turns the Tables ), "To see - it means to believe" ( English Seeing is Believing ) - John Dixon Carr's detective novels (the third of them - under the pseudonym Carter Dickson)
• "The History of Charles Dexter Ward" - a novel by Howard Lovecraft , one of the largest (by volume) of his works. It was first published in 1941.
• Blinding Darkness is a novel by Arthur Koestler . First published in 1941.

Short Prose

Plays

• “ Mother Courage and Her Children ” ( born Mother Courage and Her Children ) - a play by Bertolt Brecht

Poetry

• “New Year Letter” ( eng. New Year Letter ) is a collection of Wester Hugh Auden's poems, published in the USA under the heading “The Double Man”.

• February 25 - Felix Falk , Polish director of theater and film, screenwriter, playwright and painter.
• April 10 - Paul Theroux , American writer
• May 19 - Nora Efron , American writer
• September 3 - Sergey Dovlatov , Russian writer (died in 1990 ).
• October 4 - Anne Rice , American Writer
• December 13 - A. A. Alekseev , Russian philologist, biblical scholar.
• Zhambyn Dashdondog , Mongolian children's writer, poet (died in 2017 ).

• January 13 - James Joyce , Irish writer and poet (born in 1882 ).
• March 28 - Virginia Woolf , English writer (born 1882 ).
• August 31 - Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva , Russian poetess (born in 1892 ).
• October 26 - Arkady Petrovich Gaidar , Soviet writer (born 1904 ).
• November 4 - Norberto Romualdes López , Philippine writer, linguist (born in 1875 ).
• December 9 - Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky , Russian writer (born in 1865 ).
• December 20 - Igor Severyanin , Russian poet (born in 1887 ).