James Patrick Donleavy (23 April 1926 – 11 September 2017) was an American-Irish novelist, short story writer and playwright.

Donleavy's first published work was a short story entitled A Party on Saturday Afternoon, which appeared in the Dublin literary periodical Envoy in 1950.

[6] The novel, of which Donleavy's friend and fellow writer Brendan Behan was the first person to read the completed manuscript,[5][7] was banned in Ireland and the United States by reason of obscenity.

[9] Correctly or incorrectly, his initial works are sometimes grouped with the kitchen sink artists as well as the "Angry Young Men".

[14] He lived at Levington Park, a country house on 200 acres (0.81 km2) directly on Lough Owel, near Mullingar, County Westmeath, from 1972.