Bill Buford

Journalist Bill Buford. He traveled for eight years with "soccer thugs" -- England's hardcore soccer fans known for their violent outbreaks surrounding England's soccer games. Buford witnessed "lads" urinating on fellow spectators, commuter trains being demolished, a pub being robbed, and saw stabbings. He wanted to understand the violence that has caused many deaths (including the death of 66 fans asphyxiated in a crush of people trying to get out of a stadium in Glasgow in 1971).

Bill Buford, editor of Granta Magazine, a literary publication that offers journalism, criticism and fiction. Authors whose work the magazine has published include American short-story writer Raymond Carver, Czech novelist Milan Kundera, and Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez.