Leon Garfield, born 14 July 1921 in Brighton, Sussex, England, died 2 June 1996, was a writer of fiction best known for his historical novels for children. He also wrote for adults. He wrote more than thirty books, and directed for television.

In his youth Garfield studied art, but his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. He joined the British Army Medical Corps. While posted in Belgium he met Vivien Alcock , then an ambulance driver, who would go on to become his wife and a well-known children's author. After the war Garfield worked as a biochemical laboratory technician in a London hospital, writing in his spare time until the 1960s, when he was successful enough to write full time.

His first book, the children's pirate novel Jack Holborn, was published in 1964. His second, Devil-in-the-Fog (1966), won the first ever Guardian Award and was serialised for television, as were several of his other books. Black Jack (1968) was made into a feature film by Ken Loach. In 1970 The God Beneath the Sea, a re-telling of Greek myths co-written by Garfield and Edward Blishen and illustrated by Charles Keeping, won the Carnegie Medal for children's literature. Garfield's John Diamond won the Whitbread Award for best children's book in 1980, and Smith won the Phoenix Award for children's literature in 1987.