Susannah Clapp (born 1949) is a British writer, who has been the theatre critic of The Observer since 1997 and is a contributor to the BBC Radio 3 Nightwaves programme.^[1]

Clapp read English at the University of Bristol, where one of her teachers was Christopher Ricks.^{[citation needed]}

An editor and reader at the publisher Jonathan Cape early in her career, Clapp was a founder of the London Review of Books, where she was assistant editor.^[2] She is the author of books about Bruce Chatwin and Angela Carter, and is the literary executor of the estates of both authors.^[3]

In December 2013, after 14 years' involvement, Clapp resigned from the judging panel of the Evening Standard Theatre Awards following her objection to changes in the voting method.^[4] Allegedly, vote rigging occurred caused by the use of a secret ballot, rather than the judges making their case to each other as had been the previous practice.^[5]