Matthew Engel

Who is Matthew Engel?

Matthew Lewis Engel is a British writer and editor who began his career in 1972. He worked on The Guardian newspaper for nearly 25 years, reporting on a wide range of political and sporting events including a stint as Washington correspondent beginning on 9/11. He now writes a column in the Financial Times. Engel edited the 1993–2000 and 2004–2007 editions of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, with a short break when he worked in the US. He has been a strong critic of the International Cricket Council, international cricket's ruling body. He remains associated with the almanack, and now edits a new publishing imprint Wisden Sports Writing, which aims to publish top-class books on all sports.

Engel was the News International Visiting Professor of Media at the University of Oxford for 2011.

Engel is an alumnus of Carmel College, Oxfordshire, and Manchester University. He lives in Herefordshire with his wife Hilary and daughter Vika. His son Laurie died of cancer in 2005, aged 13, and Engel set up a successful charity fund in his memory, the Laurie Engel Fund, which has raised more than £1m in partnership with the Teenage Cancer Trust to build a new unit in Birmingham for patients. The proceeds of a book he wrote, Extracts from the Red Notebooks, are donated to this fund.