British novelist, one of the so-called Angry Young Men, whose Room at the Top (1957; film 1958) typifies the concerns of a generation of post-World War II British writers.

Braine attended St. Bede's Grammar School in Bradford and the Leeds School of Librarianship and was working as a librarian in the West Riding of Yorkshire when Room at the Top appeared. Its protagonist, a young working-class man, traps himself into an unhappy marriage with the daughter of a wealthy businessman. None of his later novels approached it in critical or popular success. Waiting for Sheila (1976) was adapted for television (1977), as was Stay With Me Till Morning (1970; adapted for television, 1980).