See also: 1956 in literature, other events of 1957, 1958 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever is published.
• Lawrence Durrell publishes Justine, the first of volume of The Alexandria Quartet. The final of the four volumes will be published in 1960.
• On the Road by Jack Kerouac is published.

New books

• At Lady Molly's - Anthony Powell
• Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
• Below the Salt - Thomas B. Costain
• Blue Camellia - Frances Parkinson Keyes
• By Love Possessed - James Gould Cozzens
• The Cat in the Hat - Dr. Seuss
• The Comforters - Muriel Spark
• Compulsion - Meyer Levin
• Doomsday Morning - C. L. Moore
• Eagle's Nest - Anna Kavan
• Eloise in Paris - Kay Thompson
• From Russia With Love - Ian Fleming
• The Guns of Navarone - Alistair MacLean
• Justine - Lawrence Durrell
• Kids Say the Darndest Things! - Art Linkletter
• La Loi - Roger Vailland
• Long Day's Journey Into Night - Eugene O'Neill
• On the Beach - Nevil Shute
• On the Road - Jack Kerouac
• Rascals in Paradise - James A. Michener
• The Scapegoat - Daphne du Maurier
• Some Came Running - James Jones
• Sugar Street - Naguib Mahfouz
• Voltaire in Love - Nancy Mitford
• The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever
• Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing - Robert Paul Smith

Births

Deaths

• February 10 - Laura Ingalls Wilder, author
• March 29 - Joyce Cary, author
• June 27 - Malcolm Lowry, author
• December 17 - Dorothy L. Sayers, author

Awards

• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Virginia Sorenson , Miracles on Maple Street
• Nobel Prize for literature: Albert Camus
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey Into Night
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Richard Wilbur: Things of This World