About the Author

Bill Buford is a staff writer and the European correspondent for The New Yorker. He was the fiction editor of the magazine for eight years, from April 1995 to December 2002. Before that Bill edited Granta magazine for 16 years and, in 1989, became the publisher of Granta Books. He has edited three anthologies: The Best of Granta Travel, The Best of Granta Reportage, and The Granta Book of the Family. Bill is also the author of Among the Thugs, a highly personal nonfiction account of crowd violence and British soccer hooliganism.

Reviews

“A grotesque, horrifying, repellent and gorgeous book; A Clockwork Orange come to life.” —John Gregory Dunne 

"An important, perhaps prophetic, book ... both exciting and sad at the core.... [Buford is] a superbly talented reporter." —The New York Times Book Review

"Brilliant ... one of the most unnerving books you will ever read." —Newsweek

Like Michael Herr or Ryszard Kapuscinski, Buford has witnessed events which can only be compared in intensity to those of a war ... an unflinching look into the festering soul of England ... a fuckin' great read." —David Byrne

Animated, witty, and so pungent you can taste the stale lager." —Washington Post Book World

Buford, a native of the United States, is the editor of the London-based literary magazine Granta . In 1982 he witnessed the takeover of a train, a football special, by English soccer thugs. He reveals how fascination for this distinctly English phenomenon of ``soccer hooliganism'' led him to follow a group of violent supporters of the Manchester United Red Devils. Buford is accepted into the group and in time seems to develop a sixth sense about impending violence or when things, in English parlance, are ``going to go off.'' Particularly riveting is his account of the aftermath of a match in Turin, Italy, where 200 or so Manchester supporters marched through the ancient streets leaving fire and destruction in their wake. Buford's original theories on football violence, fraught with notions about disenfranchised youth and the frustration of the working class, are forever dashed. He concludes that the English working class is dead, and what remains is a culture so vapid that `` . . . it pricks itself so that it has feeling, burns its flesh so that is has smell.'' Public and academic libraries should have this.-- Mark Annichiarico, ``Library Journal''

"A grotesque, horrifying, repellent and gorgeous book; A Clockwork Orange come to life." -John Gregory Dunne

"An important, perhaps prophetic, book ... both exciting and sad at the core.... [Buford is] a superbly talented reporter." -The New York Times Book Review

"Brilliant ... one of the most unnerving books you will ever read." -Newsweek

Like Michael Herr or Ryszard Kapuscinski, Buford has witnessed events which can only be compared in intensity to those of a war ... an unflinching look into the festering soul of England ... a fuckin' great read." -David Byrne

Animated, witty, and so pungent you can taste the stale lager." -Washington Post Book World