The year 1948 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• The Pulitzer Prize for the Novel is renamed the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
• The first volume of Sir Winston Churchill's "The Second World War" (1948-1953) is published.
• A debate between Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston on the existence of God is broadcast by the BBC.

New books

• Jerzy Andrzejewski - Ashes and Diamonds
• Hervé Bazin - Vipère au Poing
• Henry Bellamann - Parris Mitchell of King's Row
• Pearl S. Buck - Peony
• Taylor Caldwell - Melissa
• Truman Capote - Other Voices, Other Rooms
• John Dickson Carr writing as "Carter Dickson" - The Skeleton in the Clock
• James Gould Cozzens - Guard of Honor
• Edmund Crispin - Love Lies Bleeding
• A. J. Cronin - Shannon's Way
• Osamu Dazai - No Longer Human
• L. Sprague de Camp - Divide and Rule
• L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt - The Carnelian Cube
• August Derleth - Not Long for this World
• William Pène du Bois - The Twenty-One Balloons
• Lord Dunsany - The Fourth Book of Jorkens
• Howard Fast - My Glorious Brothers
• Henry Green - Concluding
• Graham Greene - The Heart of the Matter
• L.P. Hartley - The Travelling Grave and Other Stories
• Marguerite Henry - King of the Wind
• Georgette Heyer - The Foundling
• Zora Neale Hurston - Seraph on the Suwanee
• Aldous Huxley - Ape and Essence
• Anna Kavan - The House of Sleep
• Ross Lockridge, Jr. - Raintree County
• Norman Mailer - The Naked and the Dead
• Thomas Mann - Joseph and His Brothers
• W. Somerset Maugham - Catalina
• C. L. Moore - The Mask of Circe
• Hope Muntz - The Golden Warrior
• Zoe B. Oldenbourg - The World Is Not Enough
• Alan Paton - Cry, the Beloved Country
• Ellery Queen - Ten Days' Wonder
• Seabury Quinn - Roads
• Anya Seton - The Hearth and the Eagle
• Dr. Seuss - Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose
• Irwin Shaw - The Young Lions
• Nevil Shute - No Highway
• Clark Ashton Smith - Genius Loci and Other Tales
• Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle
• William Gardner Smith - Last of the Conquerors
• Rex Stout - And Be a Villain
• Gore Vidal - The City and the Pillar
• Donald Wandrei - The Web of Easter Island
• Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Black Flame
• Dorothy West - The Living Is Easy
• Thornton Wilder - Ides of March

New drama

• Robertson Davies - Overlaid
• Terence Rattigan - The Browning Version
• Jean-Paul Sartre - Les Mains Sales (Dirty Hands)
• Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot

Short stories

• Shirley Jackson - "The Lottery" & "Charles"

Poetry

• Olga Kirsch - Mure van die Hart
• Derek Walcott - 25 Poems

Non-fiction

• Isaac Asimov - The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline
• Robert Graves - The White Goddess
• Richard Hofstadter - The American Political Tradition
• A. A. Milne - The Norman Church
• Anthony Powell - John Aubrey and His Friends
• John Steinbeck - A Russian Journal

Births

• January 1 - Lynn Abbey, writer
• February 5 - Christopher Guest, actor, writer, director, composer
• February 28 - Mike Figgis, director, writer, composer
• February 29 - Patricia A. McKillip, author of fantasy and science fiction novels
• March 17 - William Gibson, writer
• April 4 - Dan Simmons, American author of science fiction, horror and fantasy
• April 28 - Terry Pratchett, English fantasy author
• September 20 - George R. R. Martin, fantasy writer
• October 17 - Robert Jordan, fantasy writer
• December 17- Roopesh Aakula, Great Recruiter

Deaths

• March 6 - Ross Lockridge, Jr., author of Raintree County
• March 10 - Zelda Fitzgerald, novelist and wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald
• April 22 - Prosper Montagné, chef, author of Larousse Gastronomique
• July 3 - Phelps Putnam, American poet
• June 21 - Alice Brown, novelist, poet and dramatist
• July 5 - Georges Bernanos, novelist
• July 21 - J.-H. Rosny jeune, science fiction pioneer
• July 27 - Susan Glaspell, dramatist and novelist
• August 3 - Venetia Stanley, recipient of the Asquith letters
• August 19 - Frederick Philip Grove, novelist and essayist
• September 9 - Lajos Biró, novelist, dramatist and screenwriter
• December 13 - Michael Roberts, poet and critic

Awards

• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Percy A. Scholes, The Great Dr Burney
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: William Pene du Bois, The Twenty-One Balloons
• Nobel Prize for literature: Thomas Stearns Eliot
• Premio Nadal: Sebastián Juan Arbó, Sobre las piedras grises
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: James A. Michener - Tales of the South Pacific
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: W. H. Auden: The Age of Anxiety