David Alan Mamet (born November 30, 1947) is an American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and film director. His works are known for their clever, terse, sometimes vulgar dialogue and arcane stylized phrasing, as well as for their exploration of masculinity. Mamet received Tony Award nominations for Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988), as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glen Ross. As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for The Verdict (1982) and Wag the Dog (1997).

Mamet's recent books include The Old Religion (1997), a novel about the lynching of Leo Frank; Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (2004), a Torah commentary, with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; The Wicked Son (2006), a study of Jewish self-hatred and antisemitism; and Bambi vs. Godzilla, a commentary on the movie business. A Broadway revival of his play American Buffalo, starring John Leguizamo, Cedric the Entertainer, and Haley Joel Osment, opened on October 31, 2008.

Mamet was born in Chicago, the son of Lenore June (née Silver), a teacher, and Bernard Morris Mamet, an attorney. One of his first jobs was as a busboy at Chicago's The Second City. He was educated at the Francis W. Parker School and at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. Mamet is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company; he first gained acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway plays in 1976, The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for Glengarry Glen Ross, which received its first Broadway revival in the summer of 2005.