The year 1964 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• Jean-Paul Sartre becomes head of the Organization to Defend Iranian Political Prisoners(ODIPP).
• Michael Moorcock becomes editor of the science fiction magazine New Worlds.
• W. H. Auden describes his "Vision of Agape" (June 1933) in his preface to the anthology The Protestant Mystics.
• Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer is allowed to circulate legally in the United States by the U.S. Supreme Court three decades after its original publication in France.

New books

• Chinua Achebe - Arrow of God
• Lloyd Alexander - The Book of Three
• Poul Anderson - Time and Stars
• Louis Auchincloss - The Rector of Justin
• J. G. Ballard - The Terminal Beach
• Simone de Beauvoir - A Very Easy Death (Une Mort très douce)
• Saul Bellow - Herzog
• Thomas Berger - Little Big Man
• Leigh Brackett
• People of the Talisman
• The Secret of Sinharat
• Ray Bradbury - The Machineries of Joy
• John Braine - The Jealous God
• John Brunner
• To Conquer Chaos
• The Whole Man
• Sara Bulette - The Splendid Belt of Mr. Big
• Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan and the Madman
• J. Ramsey Campbell - The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants
• A. J. Cronin - A Song of Sixpence
• Roald Dahl - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• Len Deighton - Funeral in Berlin
• August Derleth editor - Over the Edge
• Ralph Ellison - Shadow and Act
• Ian Fleming
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
• You Only Live Twice
• William Golding - The Spire
• Ernest Hemingway - A Moveable Feast
• Carl Jacobi - Portraits in Moonlight
• B. S. Johnson - Albert Angelo
• Richard E. Kim - The Martyred
• H. P. Lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels
• Ruth Manning-Sanders - A Book of Dwarfs
• John D. MacDonald - A Purple Place For Dying
• Sterling North - Rascal
• Vladimir Nabokov - The Defense
• Jan Pfloog - The Farm Book
• Anthony Powell - The Valley of Bones
• Mario Puzo - Fortunate Pilgrim
• Ellery Queen - And On the Eighth Day
• Ruth Rendell - From Doon With Death
• Hubert Selby Jr. - Last Exit to Brooklyn
• Shel Silverstein - The Giving Tree
• Clark Ashton Smith - Tales of Science and Sorcery
• Wilbur Smith - When the Lion Feeds
• Rex Stout - Trio for Blunt Instruments
• Rex Stout - A Right to Die
• Leon Uris - Armageddon
• Jack Vance
• The Houses of Iszm
• The Killing Machine
• Star King
• Gore Vidal - Julian
• Irving Wallace - The Man
• Raymond Williams - Second Generation
• Maia Wojciechowska - Shadow of a Bull

New drama

• Brian Friel - Philadelphia Here I Come!
• Joe Orton - Entertaining Mr Sloane

Poetry

• Joseph Payne Brennan - Nightmare Need
• Leonard Cohen - Flowers for Hitler
• Philip Larkin - The Whitsun Weddings
• Donald Wandrei - Poems for Midnight
• Up The Line To Death: The War Poets 1914-1918 (anthology)

Non-fiction

• Eric Berne - Games People Play
• Allan Bloom with Harry V. Jaffa - Shakespeare's Politics
• L. Sprague deCamp - Elephant
• L. Sprague deCamp and Catherine Crook de Camp - Ancient Ruins and Archaeology
• Dick Gregory - Nigger: An Autobiography
• John F. Kennedy - A Nation of Immigrants (published posthumously)
• Martin Luther King, Jr. - Why We Can't Wait
• Herbert Marcuse - One-Dimensional Man
• Marshall McLuhan - Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
• Evelyn Waugh - A Little Learning

Births

• March 7 - Bret Easton Ellis, author
• July 3 - Joanne Harris, author

Deaths

• January 17 - T.H. White, author
• February 3 - Clarence Irving Lewis, philosopher
• February 25 - Grace Metalious, writer Peyton Place
• April 14 - Rachel Carson, environmentalist author
• April 18 - Ben Hecht, screenwriter
• May 13 - Hamilton Basso, novelist and journalist
• August 3 - Flannery O'Connor
• August 12 - Ian Fleming, James Bond author
• September 18 - Sean O'Casey, dramatist
• November 21 - Leah Bodine Drake, poet
• December 21 - Carl Van Vechten

Awards

• Nobel Prize for literature - Jean-Paul Sartre

Canada

• See 1964 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Goncourt: Georges Conchon, L'Etat sauvage
• Prix Médicis: Monique Wittig, L’Opoponax

United Kingdom

• Eric Gregory Award: Robert Nye, Ken Smith, Jean Symons, Ted Walker
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Frank Tuohy, The Ice Saints
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Elizabeth Longford, Victoria R.I.
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: R. S. Thomas

United States

• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Lillian Hellman
• Hugo Award: Clifford D. Simak, Way Station
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Emily Cheney Neville, It's Like This, Cat
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Louis Simpson: At The End Of The Open Road

Elsewhere

• Premio Nadal: Alfredo Martínez Garrido, El miedo y la esperanza
• Viareggio Prize: Giuseppe Berto, Il male oscuro