David Stephen Mitchell is an English novelist, television writer, and screenwriter. He was born on 12 January 1969 in Southport, Merseyside, England. Raised in Malvern, Worcestershire, he received his education at the University of Kent where he earned a degree in English and American Literature and a master's in Comparative Literature.

Mitchell's debut novel, Ghostwritten (1999), won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award. His subsequent works, number9dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004), were both shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Beyond novels, he has contributed articles to several newspapers, most notably The Guardian, and has translated Japanese books on autism into English. In 2016, Mitchell participated in the Future Library project with his short novel From Me Flows What You Call Time, which will remain unpublished until 2114.

David Mitchell resides in Cork, Ireland, with his Japanese wife Keiko and their two children.