Nina Mary Bawden CBE, FRSL, JP (19 January 1925 – 22 August 2012) was an English novelist and children's writer.

She was educated at Ilford County High School for Girls, and then attended Somerville College, Oxford (BA 1946, MA 1951), where she gained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

In 1954 Nina married Austen Kark, a reporter who eventually became managing director of the BBC World Service.

Her testimony about the crash, and her exploration of the management and maintenance mistakes that caused it, became a major part of David Hare's play The Permanent Way, in which she appeared as a character.

[9] (Bawden and Carrie's War had been a commended runner up for the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject.