A renowned novelist, essayist, painter, filmmaker, dramatist and critic, John Berger is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential British writers of the past 50 years.

He won the Booker Prize in 1972 for the novel G, and was also awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the same novel. His latest book of essays is The Shape of a Pocket (2003). His most well known book is Ways of Seeing (1990), which was turned into a television series by the BBC.

John Berger has written for openDemocracy on the issues of poverty, storytelling, the Iraq conflict, the 2004 US election and Michael Moore’s controversial film Fahrenheit 9/11.

John Berger’s career began in art, where he attended the Central School of Art and the Chelsea School of Art in London, going on to teach drawing in the period 1948-1955. His art has been exhibited at the Wildenstein, Redfern and Leicester galleries in London. Berger has continued to paint throughout his career.

Born in London, he has lived for the past 20 years in a small village in the French Alps. Fascinated by the traditions and endangered way of life of the mountain people, he has written about them both in his fiction and nonfiction. Berger is a diverse and prolific artist and his commitment to democratic and open exchange is constant across all genres and throughout his work. He cites the idea of collaboration as central to his creative identity.

Recent articles

A pitiless market is met by an anomic politics. John Berger dissects the official language of crisis in France.

John Berger and his family went to organise painting and drawing workshops for children in Ramallah in November 2005. Here are his reflections.

“The worst cruelties of life are its killing injustices.” John Berger on poverty, desire, storytelling, and the future’s gift to the present.

Susan Sontag, born in 1933, died in New York on 28 December 2004.

The importance of the United States election on 2 November is so great that all considerations except one – defeating Bush - need to be set aside, John Berger tells openDemocracy editor Anthony Barnett.