Sir James Henry Peter McNeish KNZM (23 October 1931 – 11 November 2016) was a New Zealand novelist, playwright and biographer.
 McNeish attended Auckland Grammar School and graduated from Auckland University College with a degree in languages. He travelled the world as a young man, working as a deckhand on a Norwegian freighter in 1958, and recording folk music in 21 countries. He worked in the Theatre Workshop in London with Joan Littlewood, and was influenced by her spirit of socially-committed drama. He worked as a freelance programme and documentary maker for the BBC Radio's Features Department in the 1960s. He also wrote for The Guardian and The Observer. He spent three years in Sicily with Danilo Dolci, the non-violent anti-Mafia reformer, and wrote Fire under the Ashes (1965, London: Hodder and Stoughton) a biographical account of Dolci's life which is remarkable for its objectivity and clarity. He wrote some 25 books.
 McNeish's writing has been the subject of critical acclaim both at home and abroad. Besides New Zealand, his books are set in Sicily, London, Israel and New Caledonia. He was described as "prolific" by the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature. His book Lovelock was nominated for the 1986 Booker Prize.
 In 1999, McNeish was awarded the prestigious National Library of New Zealand Research Fellowship, allowing him to research the lives and friendships of five prominent New Zealanders who attended Oxford University in the 1930s—four of them Rhodes Scholars: James Bertram, Geoffrey Cox, Dan Davin, Ian Milner and John Mulgan.[citation needed] This multi-biography was published under the title The Dance of the Peacocks: New Zealanders in exile in the time of Hitler and Mao Tse Tung (2003). In the same vein, The Sixth Man (2007) is a biography of another gifted New Zealander, Paddy Costello, who studied at Cambridge University during the same period and whose subsequent career in the Foreign Office was marred by controversy.
 
In 2010, McNeish was honoured with the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Non-Fiction. His intention was to donate part of his prize towards a travel scholarship—'a hardship scheme'—for young writers. It was said about McNeish that among New Zealand novelists, he was the 'wild card'. In an interview with Philip Matthews in 2010 (Weekend, 26 June 2010), he said: "I've always been an outsider, and I'm quite comfortable with that. To retain your critical sense in a small society like New Zealand, you have to stand apart".
 In the 2011 New Year Honours, McNeish was appointed as Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature.
 McNeish lived in Wellington, New Zealand, with his wife Helen, Lady McNeish. He has one son Mark and one daughter, Kathryn. He died on 11 November 2016, aged 85, several days after submitting his final manuscript, Breaking Ranks, to HarperCollins for publication in April 2017.
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 Non-Fiction
 Tavern in the Town. Wellington: Reed, 1957
 The Man From Nowhere & Other Prose. Auckland: Godwit, 1991
 North and South Dec (1991) 119–123 
Walking on My Feet : A. R. D. Fairburn, 1904–1957 : a Kind of Biography. Auckland: Collins, 1983
 Lovelock' Auckland, Godwit, 1994
 Mackenzie: a Novel Auckland: Godwit, 1995
 Mr Halliday and the Circus Master. Auckland: David Ling Publishing, 1996
 My Name is Paradiso, Auckland: David Ling Publishing, 1995.
 Penelope's Island, Auckland: Hodder and Stoughton, 1990
 The Glass Zoo, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1976
 The Mackenzie Affair, Auckland: Hodder and Stoughton, 1972
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