John Barlow

Who is John Barlow?

John Barlow is an English writer. He was born in Gomersal, near Huddersfield in Yorkshire and educated at the University of Cambridge. He holds a PhD in Applied linguistics from the University of Hull, and has worked as a university teacher at Corunna in Spain as well as at York in England, but since 2005 has been a full-time writer, living in northern 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. 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, a collection of three novellas. The title work was originally published in the Paris Review, and Barlow was awarded the magazine's 2001 Plimpton Prize for it.

Intoxicated, subtitled "a novel about money, madness, and the invention of the world's favourite soft drink".