About

Jason Cowley is a journalist, magazine editor and writer.

He was editor of the New Statesman from 2008-2024. He writes for the Sunday Times and the New Statesman.

He was editor of Granta (2007-2008), editor of the Observer Sport Monthly magazine (2003-2007), literary editor of the New Statesman (1998-2002), and a staff writer on The Times (1996-1998).

In 2019 he was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Journalism.

In 2020 he was voted Editor of the Year, Politics and Current Affairs, for the fourth time at the British Society of Magazine Editors awards.

He is the author of a memoir, The Last Game (Simon & Schuster, 2009), and a book of essays and profiles, Reaching for Utopia (Salt Publishing, 2018).

In 2019, he edited and wrote the introduction to Statesmanship: The Best of the New Statesman, 1913-2019 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson; a revised and updated paperback edition was published in 2020).

His introduction to the Macmillan Collector’s Library edition of George Orwell’s Animal Farm was published in 2021.

In 2023 he was chair of the judges of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction’s 25th anniversary Winner of Winners Award.

He is a trustee of The Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden, Essex, and an ambassador of the British Society of Magazine Editors.

His most recent book, Who Are We Now? Stories of Modern England (Picador), was published in 2022; the paperback edition in 2023.

He is working on a short book about Clement Attlee.