Mark Kurlansky (December 7, 1948) is an American journalist and author who has written a number of books of fiction and nonfiction.

His 1997 book, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (1997), was an international bestseller and was translated into more than fifteen languages.

His book Nonviolence: Twenty-five Lessons From the History of a Dangerous Idea (2006) was the nonfiction winner of the 2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

His third work of nonfiction, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, won the 1998 James Beard Award.

[1] As a teenager, Kurlansky called Émile Zola his "hero", and in 2009, he translated one of Zola's novels, The Belly of Paris, whose theme is the food markets of Paris.