Muhammad Haji Salleh is a Malaysian poet, literary critic, translator, and scholar of classical and modern Malay literature, and was named Malaysia's sixth National Laureate in 1991. Writing in both Malay and English, he has authored more than eighty books and helped introduce Malaysian literature to readers across Asia, Europe, and the United States.

After earning his PhD at the University of Michigan, he served as a Fulbright-Hays Visiting Professor at North Carolina State University and a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and held the Chair of Malay Studies at Leiden University. His honours include the S.E.A. Write Award (1997), National Academic Figure (2008), and Professor Emeritus (2009).