Martin Fletcher is a former foreign and associate editor of The Times of London, now working as a freelance journalist and author specialising in foreign affairs, domestic politics and travel. He was named Feature Writer of the Year in the British Press Awards of 2015.
He was born in 1956 and educated at Uppingham, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Pennsylvania. He joined The Times in 1986 as a political reporter. He subsequently served as Belfast Correspondent, Europe Correspondent based in Brussels, and for eight years as Washington Correspondent and US Bureau Chief.
He was appointed Foreign News Editor of The Times in 2002. He then became a writer-at-large, reporting from Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Zimbabwe, Somalia, China, Chile and many other countries.
In addition to Feature Writer of the Year, he was shortlisted for Foreign Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards of 2007 and 2010, for Feature Writer of the Year in 2016, for Travel Writer of the Year in 2018, for Best Print Journalist in the Foreign Press Association Awards 2009, and for Best Environment Article in the Foreign Press Awards of 2014.
He now writes for various publications including the Telegraph and Times magazines, The Financial Times, the New Statesman, The Sunday Times, The New European, Prospect, the New York Times, the Radio Times, GQ, Conde Nast Traveller and Wanderlust.
He is the author of Almost Heaven: Travels Through the Backwoods of America (Little Brown, 1998), which was short-listed for the Thomas Cook Travel Book award, and Silver Linings: Travels around Northern Ireland (Little Brown, 2000). He is married with three children and lives in London and Suffolk.