People like John Niven

John Niven (born 1966) is a Scottish author and screenwriter. His books include Kill Your Friends, The Amateurs, and The Second Coming.

Born in Irvine, Ayrshire, Niven read English literature at the University of Glasgow, graduating in 1991 with First Class honours. For the next ten years, he worked for a variety of record companies, including London Records and Independiente. He left the music industry to write full-time in 2002 and published Music from Big Pink, a book about The Band’s album of the same name, in 2005 (Continuum Press). The book was optioned for the screen by CC Films with a script written by English playwright Jez Butterworth.

Niven's breakthrough novel Kill Your Friends is a satire of the music business, based on his brief career in A&R, during which he passed up the chance to sign Coldplay and Muse. The novel was published by William Heinemann in 2008 to much acclaim, with The Word magazine describing it as "possibly the best British Novel since Trainspotting". It has been translated into seven languages and was a bestseller in Britain and Germany. Niven has since published The Amateurs (2009), The Second Coming (2011), Cold Hands (2012), Straight White Male (2013), The Sunshine Cruise Company (2015) and Kill 'em All (2018).