Gilbert Adair was a Scottish novelist, poet, film critic, and journalist. Born in Edinburgh, he lived in Paris from 1968 through 1980. He is most famous for such novels as Love and Death on Long Island (1997) and The Dreamers (2003), both of which were made into films. He is also highly noted for his "fiendish" translation of Georges Perec's postmodern novel A Void, in which the letter 'e' is not used. Adair won the 1995 Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize for this work.

In 1998 and 1999, Adair was the chief film critic for The Independent on Sunday, where in 1999 he also wrote a year-long column called "The Guillotine." In addition to the films made from his own works, Adair worked on the screenplays for a number of Raúl Ruiz films.