This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1543.

• unknown date – In France:
  • The Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris issues its first Index of prohibited (religious) books.^[1]
  • Guillaume Rouillé sets up as a bookseller in Lyon.

• Mikael Agricola – Abckiria (first book printed in Finnish)
• Nicolaus Copernicus – De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres)
• Martin Luther – Vom Schem Hamphoras^[2]
• Fernán Pérez de Oliva, completed by Francisco Cervantes de Salazar – Dialogo de la dignidad del hombre
• Andreas Vesalius – De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (On the Fabric of the Human Body, in Seven Books)
• Benefizio della Morte di Cristo ("The Benefit of Christ's Death", attributed to Aonio Paleario)

• Lodovico Dolce – Hecuba

• See 1543 in poetry

• February 4 – Giovanni Francesco Fara, Sardinian historian, geographer and clergyman^[3]
• February 25 – Sharaf Khan Bidlisi, politician, historian and poet (died 1603)
• November 2 – Kasper Franck, German theologian (died 1584)
• Unknown dates
  • Louis Bellaud, Occitan language writer and poet (died 1588)
  • Thomas Deloney, silk weaver and writer (died in or before 1600 in literature)
  • Bartosz Paprocki, Polish and Czech historiographer, translator and poet (died 1614)
  • Thomas Twyne, Elizabethan translator and physician (died 1613)
  • Antonio Veneziano, Sicilian poet (died 1593)

• May 24 – Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish Renaissance mathematician and astronomer (born 1473)
• July 19 – Berthold of Chiemsee, German theologian (born 1465)
• Unknown date – Jan Dubčanský ze Zdenína, Moravian nobleman, printer of Moravia's first Czech-language book (born 1490)