Alan Riding, a British journalist and author who spent much of his career with The New York Times, died on June 6, 2026.
He was 82. Born in Rio de Janeiro on December 8, 1943, Riding spent his first 11 years in Brazil before moving to England, where he attended Rossall School and later the University of Bristol.
He was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn before turning to journalism. Riding began at Reuters in New York covering the United Nations, then moved to Mexico in 1971 as a freelance reporter for publications including The Financial Times, The Economist and The New York Times. He joined The New York Times in 1978 as Mexico City bureau chief and later served as the paper’s European cultural correspondent in Paris. He also wrote books including Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans and And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris.