Malcolm Cowley, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1963

Malcolm Cowley (1898 – March 27, 1989) was an American novelist, poet, critic, and journalist.

Cowley started studying at Harvard before joining the American Field Service in France during World War I. Upon returning to the US, Cowley married the artist Peggy Baird but they were divorced in 1931; his second wife wasMuriel Maurer.

He graduated from Harvard in 1920. As part of the great migration of creative genius that congregated in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris, Cowley returned to live in France for three years, where he worked with Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others. For this reason, he is often referred to as being part of the Lost Generation. From 1929 through 1944, Cowley was an assistant editor of the New Republic.

During this period, he became a radical liberal and began writing about politics. As with many of his generation, Cowley came under scrutiny by J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI.

Later in his life, Cowley edited the works of Hemingway, William Faulkner and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Cowley's most famous work is his autobiographical Exile's Return, published in 1934. Exile's Return particularly chronicles the general movement by the Lost Generation out of the United States.

Cowley died on March 27, 1989.