Bill Buford | |
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| Born | (1954-10-06)6 October 1954 (age 70) Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Occupation | Author, journalist |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley King's College, Cambridge |
| Literary movement | Dirty realism |
| Notable works | Among the Thugs (1990) Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany (2006) Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking (2020) |
William Holmes Buford (born 6 October 1954)[1] is an American author and journalist. He is the author of the booksAmong the Thugs andHeat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany. Buford was previously the fiction editor forThe New Yorker, where he is still on staff. For sixteen years, he was the editor ofGranta, which he relaunched in 1979. He is also credited with coining the term "dirty realism".
Buford was born inBaton Rouge, Louisiana, and raised inSouthern California, attending theUniversity of California, Berkeley, from 1973 to 1977. He then received aMarshall Scholarship to read English atKing's College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a BA in 1979.[2] He remained in England for most of the 1980s.
Among the Thugs (1990) is presented as an insider's account of the world of (primarily) Englishfootballhooliganism.
Heat (2006) is Buford's account of working for free in the kitchen ofBabbo, a New York City restaurant owned by chefMario Batali. Buford's premise is that he considered himself a capable home cook and wondered whether he had the skills to work in a busy restaurant kitchen. He met Batali at a dinner party and asked whether he would take on Buford as his "kitchen bitch".[3][4][5][6]
Buford began his time at Babbo in a variety of roles including dishwasher, prep cook, garbage remover and any other role demanded of him. Over the course of the book, his skills improve and he is able to butcher a hog and work many stations in the restaurant; he traveled to Italy to meet cooks and chefs who were crucial to Batali's early culinary development, as Buford worked and lived in some of the places Batali had trained.
Subsequently, Buford started working on a book onFrench cuisine. In October 2007, his article titled "Extreme Chocolate: The Quest for the Perfect Bean" was published inThe New Yorker.
Buford's article "Cooking with Daniel: Three French Classics", about his experience cooking with French chefDaniel Boulud, was published in the July 29, 2013, issue ofThe New Yorker.[7] In an interview posted onThe New Yorker's website to accompany the article, he discussed his time living in France and what he had learned about French cooking.[8] The book-length treatment of Buford's time inLyon, France, from December 2008 to September 2013, appeared in 2020 asDirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking. It details stints working with "Bob", baker at the boulangerie Philippe Richard, attending classes at theInstitut Paul Bocuse, and, at greatest length, as astagiaire at La Mère Brazier.
Salman Rushdie's novelThe Enchantress of Florence (2008) is dedicated "to Bill Buford".[9]
Buford relaunched the then-defunct literary magazineGranta in 1979.[10] Under his leadership,that journal became highly influential and "rose to conquer the literary world."[11] He edited it until 1995, when he left to become the fiction editor ofThe New Yorker.[12] In 2002,The New Yorker announced that Buford would leave the latter position at the beginning of 2003, to be replaced byDeborah Treisman, his deputy, whom he had recruited to the magazine.[13][14] He remains on its staff.
Buford is married to Jessica Green.[15] They have twin sons.[15]
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| Preceded by (unknown) | Editor ofGranta 1979–1995 | Succeeded by |
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