Matt Gallagher (author)

Matt Gallagher (born February 24, 1983) is an American author, veteran of the Iraq War and war correspondent. Gallagher has written on a variety of subjects, mainly contemporary war fiction and non-fiction. He first became known for his war memoir Kaboom (2010), which tells of his and his scout platoon's experiences during the Iraq War.

Gallagher was interviewed in September 2016 at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan by General (Retired) David H. Petraeus. Gallagher's debut novel Youngblood was published in February 2016 by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Youngblood was met with widespread critical acclaim, receiving positive reviews and features in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Esquire, The Wall Street Journal and Vogue, and others. It was selected as a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for fiction.

In 2022, he journeyed to Ukraine as a volunteer and later as a journalist to cover the Russian invasion. His February 2024 novel, Daybreak, is loosely informed by his experiences in Ukraine and follows an American military veteran into the war to find a former love. In an early review, Publishers Weekly wrote that "This harrowing account of life in a besieged Ukraine reads like a bulletin from the front," and said that Daybreak echoed of both Hemingway and Casablanca.