1971 in literature

See also: 1970 in literature, other events of 1971, 1972 in literature, list of years in literature.

Deaths

• March 5 - Allan Nevins, journalist
• March 7 - Stevie Smith, poet
• April 10 - André Billy, French author
• May 19 - Ogden Nash, poet and humorist
• May 20 - Waldo Williams, Welsh language poet
• June 1 - Reinhold Niebuhr, theologian
• June 4 - Georg Lukács, philosopher and critic
• June 6 - Edward Andrade, poet and physicist
• July 4 - August Derleth, anthologist
• July 7 - Claude Gauvreau, poet and dramatist
• August 30 - Peter Fleming, travel writer and brother of Ian Fleming
• October 25 - Philip Gordon Wylie, novelist
• December 25 - S. Foster Damon, critic and poet
• date unknown - Clifford Dyment, poet
• date unknown - St. John Greer Ervine, dramatist
• date unknown - Jacques Lusseyran, blind author