See also: 1954 in literature, other events of 1955, 1956 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• First issue of the "Guinness Book of Records" published.
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is published in Paris. However, it took until 1958 to be published in United States.
• An article in the British Journal of Education is critical of the novels of Enid Blyton.
• Jean Cocteau is elected to both the ''Académie française and the Royal Academy of Belgium.

New books

• The Acceptance World - Anthony Powell
• Andersonville - MacKinlay Kantor
• Auntie Mame - Patrick Dennis
• Bath Tangle – Georgette Heyer
• Birdman of Alcatraz - Thomas E. Gaddis
• Bonjour Tristesse - Françoise Sagan
• The Chrysalids - John Wyndham
• The Dragon in the Sea - Frank Herbert
• The End of Eternity - Isaac Asimov
• The Genius and the Goddess - Aldous Huxley
• The Ginger Man - J. P. Donleavy
• Good Country People - Flannery O'Connor
• A Good Man Is Hard To Find - Flannery O'Connor
• Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
• The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne - Brian Moore
• The Lord of the Rings : The Return of the King - J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Magician's Nephew - C.S. Lewis
• The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit - Sloan Wilson
• Marjorie Morningstar - Herman Wouk
• Moonraker - Ian Fleming
• No Time for Sergeants - Mac Hyman
• Not As a Stranger - Morton Thompson
• Notes of a Native Son - James Baldwin
• The October Country - Ray Bradbury
• Pedro Paramo - Juan Rulfo
• The Quiet American - Graham Greene
• Satan in Goray - Isaac Bashevis Singer
• Scuffy the Tugboat - Gertrude Crampton
• Something of Value - Robert Ruark
• That Uncertain Feeling - Kingsley Amis
• The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor (Relato de un náufrago) - Gabriel García Márquez
• The Talented Mr. Ripley - Patricia Highsmith
• Ten North Frederick - John O'Hara
• The Tontine - Thomas B. Costain
• The Tree of Man - Patrick White
• Tunnel in the Sky - Robert A. Heinlein

New drama

• George Axelrod - Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter
• Tennessee Williams - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Non-fiction

• Walter Lippmann - Essays in the Public Philosophy
• Herbert Marcuse - Eros and Civilisation

Births

• January 12 - Rockne O'Bannon, writer, producer
• January 13 - Jay McInerney, writer
• February 8 - John Grisham, novelist
• June 13 - Larry Mike Garmon, novelist, short story writer
• June 20 - Tor Nørretranders, science author
• September 6 - Raymond Benson, novelist
• November 23 - Steven Brust, fantasy author

Deaths

• January 20 - Robert P. Tristram Coffin, poet, essayist, novelist
• June 19 - Adrienne Monnier, French poet and publisher
• August 2 - Wallace Stevens, poet (b. 1879)
• August 12 - Thomas Mann
• September 20 - Robert Riskin, dramatist and screenwriter
• October 18 - José Ortega y Gasset, philosopher
• date unknown - Constance Holme, novelist and dramatist

Awards

• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Meindert DeJong, The Wheel on the School
• Nobel Prize for Literature: Halldór Kiljan Laxness
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Tennessee Williams, Cat on A Hot Tin Roof
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: William Faulkner - A Fable
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Wallace Stevens: Collected Poems

1955 books

1955 en littérature | 1955 - literatura | Litteraturåret 1955