Cees Nooteboom (born Cornelis Johannes Jacobus Maria Nooteboom, 31 July 1933, in the Hague) is a Dutch author. He has won numerous literary awards and has been mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature.

Nooteboom was born in The Hague, where his father was killed in a bombing in 1945. After his mother remarried in 1948, and thanks to his strict Catholic stepfather, Nooteboom attended several religious secondary schools, including a Franciscan school in Venray and a school run by the Augustinians in Eindhoven. He finished his secondary education at a nightschool in Utrecht.

After his first job with a bank in Hilversum, Nooteboom traveled throughout Europe. In addition to his writing, he has worked for the political weekly Elsevier from 1957–1960 and at the newspaper de Volkskrant from 1961-1968. In 1967, he became the travel editor for the magazine Avenue.

Nooteboom hired on as a sailor on a freighter to Surinam in 1957 in order to ask for the hand of his first wife, Fanny Lichtveld. They divorced in 1964. Some of his experiences are recounted in the book De verliefde gevangene (1958). He was also in a relationship with the singer, Liesbeth List. Currently he is married to Simone Sassen and divides his time between Amsterdam and the island of Minorca.