John Barlow (born 1967) is an English writer. He was born in the Yorkshire village of Gomersal, near Leeds. He studied English Literature at the University of Cambridge and has a PhD in Applied linguistics from the University of Hull. He works as a novelist, food writer and translator, and lives in the Galician city of A Coruña (Spain).

Barlow's early books could be described as comic historical; they combine elements of farce, black humour, magical realism and folklore in what critics have described as an unusual mixture.^[1] They are strongly rooted in his Yorkshire background. More recently Barlow has branched out into children's literature and crime fiction.

Barlow's works include:

• Eating Mammals (2004), a collection of three novellas. The title work was originally published in the Paris Review, and Barlow was awarded the magazine's 2001 Plimpton (Discovery) Prize for it.
• Intoxicated (2006), subtitled "a novel about money, madness, and the invention of the world's favourite soft drink".
• Everything But The Squeal (2008), a 'gastronomic travelogue' in which he describes the little-known region of Galicia in northern Spain, as well as his attempts to consume every part of the pig, the basis of rural Galician cooking.
• What Ever Happened to Jerry Picco? (2011), a PI novel with comic elements.
• Islanders (2012), a dystopian adventure for young adult readers.
• LS9 Series. Three crime novels featuring second-hand car salesman John Ray: Hope Road (2011), Father and Son (2013), The Communion of Saints (2016).
• Joe Romano Series. Featuring Leeds-based detective Joe Romano: Right to Kill (2021),^[2] TBA (2022).

He was the ghost-writer for the Headless Project (2007-2015) of Swedish conceptual artists goldin+senneby, including the novel Headless, a fictionalised account of Barlow’s investigation into an off-shore company based in the Bahamas.^[3]

His books have been translated into Italian, Polish, German, Russian, Spanish and Galician.

• Barlow's personal website