John Barlow

John Barlow is an English writer who was born in 1967 in the Yorkshire village of Gomersal, close to Leeds. He studied English Literature at the University of Cambridge and has a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Hull. Prior to his academic pursuits, Barlow worked as a musician. In addition to being a food writer, novelist, and translator, he is also known for his prize-winning fiction and non-fiction works.

Barlow's writing has been published by several prominent publishers, including HarperCollins/William Morrow, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 4th Estate, and others in the UK, US, Australia, Russia, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Poland. His current project is the Joe Romano crime thriller series, with the first novel, "Right to Kill," published by HQ/HarperCollins in the UK on June 24th, 2021.

Barlow was born in West Yorkshire, England, and worked as a musician before studying English Literature at Cambridge University and language acquisition at Hull University. After teaching English for several years, he moved to Spain to write full-time. He is married to Susana, with whom he has two sons, and they currently live in the Galician city of A Coruña.

In addition to his work as a novelist, Barlow also works as a ghostwriter and journalist. He has written for the Washington Post, Slate.com, Penthouse, Departures Magazine, and The Big Issue, and he is currently a feature writer for the award-winning food magazine Spain Gourmetour.

Barlow's first published work, a novella, won the Paris Review's Discovery (Plimpton) Prize in 2002. He has since published a collection of novellas, "Eating Mammals," the historical novel "Intoxicated," and "Everything But the Squeal," a food-travelogue about Spain. He has also published the off-beat noir novel "What Ever Happened to Jerry Picco?" and three novels in the LS9 series, featuring amateur sleuth John Ray.

Barlow has also worked with the conceptual artists goldin+enneby on their ACÉPHALE project, which has taken him to Nassau, Bergamo, Oslo, and London, and into the company of Bahamian off-shore bankers, defamation lawyers, prize-winning artists, and Martina Navratilova. His writing for the project has been published in English, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, and Portuguese, and has featured in numerous art shows and galleries around the world. The novel "Headless," based on the project, was released in 2013.