British playwright and novelist noted for exploding popular assumptions by his examination of the complexity and ambivalence of human motives and behaviour.

Bowen was the son of a business manager working in India. After attending Pembroke and St. Anthony's College, Oxford (M.A., 1952), he went to Ohio State University, U.S., for a year's study. While in the United States, he was revolted by the investigations of Senator Joseph McCarthy. That experience inspired his first novel, The Truth Will Not Help Us (1956), about an unjust trial of three Englishmen in Scotland in 1705 for piracy.

Back in England, Bowen worked in journalism and advertising and was a consultant on television drama for Associated Television (1960–67). The Essay Prize (1962) is a collection of his own television plays with an essay on writing for television. His novel After the Rain (1958), about survivors from a worldwide flood, was adapted as a play in 1966. Among his other plays are I Love You, Mrs. Patterson (1964); Little Boxes (1968); The Disorderly Women (1969), a modern version of the Bacchae legend; The Corsican Brothers (1970), a play with music based on the story by Alexandre Dumas père; Florence Nightingale (1975); Spot the Lady (1981); and The Oak Tree Tea-Room Siege (1990). Later novels by Bowen include Storyboard (1960), The McGuffin (1984), and The Girls: A Story of Village Life (1986).