Nick Barley is a publisher, editor and festival organiser. He has been director and chief executive of the Edinburgh International Book Festival since 2009.

During that period he has built its international reputation as one of the world’s leading literary festivals. He has introduced late-night programming in the celebrated Unbound live literature nights; Playing with Books, an innovative strand which transforms great books into new scratch theatre projects; and Citizen, a community engagement project which is working with people who previously felt excluded from the literary festival scene. 

Nick has judged a variety of literary and cultural prizes and in 2017 he chaired the judging panel for the Man Booker International Prize.

In 2018, the year he became a trustee of the Booker Prize Foundation, he was made a Chevalier of the Order of Merit by the French Government for services to literature, and became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.