Burke, Martyn

Martyn Burke (1942-) is a novelist, journalist, film director, documentarian, and screenwriter. He graduated from McMaster with a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Sciences (Economics) in 1964. After graduation, he travelled to Vietnam as an independent freelance journalist covering the war. His dispatches were printed in the Toronto Telegram “Martyn Burke’s Vietnam War Diary,” and later became the basis of his first work of fiction. He is the author of several fiction books: The Laughing War (1980), Ivory Joe (1991), Tiara (1995), The Commissar’s Report (1984), The Shelling of Beverly Hills (2000), The Truth about the Night (2006), and Music for Love or War (2015). Following the Vietnam War, Burke returned to Canada to work as a producer at CBC television.

Burke is best known as a documentarian and his work has been broadcast by the CBC, BBC in the United Kingdom, TF-1 in France and CBS's 60 Minutes. In 1977, he co-produced Connections: An Investigation into Organized Crime in Canada, a two-part documentary series on the Mafia with CBC/Norfolk Communications Ltd. In 1988, Burke directed Witnesses, a documentary film which provided a behind-the-scenes view of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. His documentary film, Under Fire: Journalists in Combat, featured interviews with journalists and photographers who had experienced war first-hand and won a Peabody Award in 2011.

His film and cable television credits include: co-writer of the cult comedy Top Secret; writer, HBO’s satirical The Second Civil War (1997); and writer/director of the Emmy-nominated television film, Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999).

Burke divides his time between Toronto and Santa Monica, California.