Alan Sillitoe was an English writer and one of the so-called "angry young men" of the 1950s. He disliked the label, as did most of the other writers to whom it was applied. He is best known for his debut novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and his early short story The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, both of which were adapted into films.

Alan was born in Nottingham, England, to working-class parents. His father worked in the Raleigh factory. In World War II, he served with the Royal Air Force as a wireless operator in Malaysia from 1946-1949. Upon returning to England, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent sixteen months in an RAF hospital. After he was discharged, he lived in France and Spain on his veteran's pension and attempted to recover from the disease.

In 1955, while living in Mallorca with his lover, American poet Ruth Fainlight, he began to write his first novel, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, which was published in 1958. He has written many novels and several volumes of poetry. In 1995, he wrote an autobiography, Life Without Armour. He married Ruth Fainlight and lived in London.