Mark Kurlansky

Mark Kurlansky is The New York Times best-selling and James A. Beard Award-winning author of 1968: The Year That Rocked the World, Salt: A World History, The Basque History of the World, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, The White Man in the Tree (a collection of short stories), and several other books. He is has also written his first novel, Boogaloo on Second Avenue.

Kurlansky has a long-standing interest in food and food history. He worked as a professional chef and pastry maker in New York and New England and currently writes a regular column about food history forFood & Wine magazine, one of which was included in Best Food Writing 2000.

His book Cod was on both The New York Times and Boston Globe bestseller lists, received the James Beard Award for Excellence in Food Writing and The Glenfiddich 1999 Food and Drink Award for Best Book. The New York Public Library also chose it as one of the Best Books of 1997. His book, The Basque History of the World, underscored his personal passion for immersion in cultures struggling to preserve or define their identity.

Kurlansky recently transformed 25 years of experience reporting on international affairs, living for many years in Europe, and covering the Caribbean into a collection of short stories and a novella, The White Man in the Tree. The New York Times Book Review wrote about it "A reader might reasonably wonder what took him so long to jump into the pool, given the strength of his talent."

Kurlansky has written articles for The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, The International Herald Tribune, and Partisan Review. He is also the author of two other books: A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny and The Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry.