Eckhart Nickel (born 1966) is a German author and journalist.

Nickel was born in Frankfurt am Main.^[1] After studying art history and literature in Heidelberg and New York City,^[1] he worked at various media outlets including the German lifestyle magazine Tempo,^[2] Arte television in Strasbourg, and Architectural Digest.^[1] His writings were published in the weekend editions of the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.^[1] He co-wrote the 1998 travel book Ferien für immer with the Swiss writer Christian Kracht. He was also editor-in-chief of the acclaimed literary magazine Der Freund, a collaboration with Kracht (the magazine's publisher), which was created in Kathmandu and published from September 2004 to June 2006.^[3] From January to October 2007 he was in charge of lifestyle writing for the Saturday supplement of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. He is a resident of Sonoma County, California.

At the start of his career Nickel was classified in the so-called "pop literature" genre of contemporary German writing; his works are chiefly concerned with the fate of modern man in a state of rebellion. Initially highly self-referential, one reviewer has noted a "more serious undertone" to his more recent works.^[1]