John Baxter is an Australian-born writer, journalist, filmmaker, and one
of the most evocative chroniclers of Parisian life in the English language.
Born in 1939 in Randwick, New South Wales, he grew up with an early passion
for film and fiction that would shape the next seven decades of his working
life. He began writing science fiction in the early 1960s for New
Worlds, Science Fantasy, and other British magazines, and his
debut novel — serialized in New Worlds as The God Killers
— was published in the United States by Ace Books as The
Off-Worlders. He has since written a number of novels and short stories
in the genre, a critical study of science fiction in the cinema, and edited
collections of Australian science fiction.
In the 1960s, Baxter was a driving force in Sydney's film culture. He
edited the cinema journal Film Digest for the WEA Film Study
Group (1965–1967), alongside notable Australian cultural figures including
Frank Moorhouse and Michael Thornhill, and was active in the Sydney Film
Festival for much of the decade. He lived for periods in Britain and the
United States — serving as Visiting Professor at Hollins College in Virginia
in 1975–1976 — before returning to Australia, where he wrote film criticism
for The Australian, produced and presented three television series
for the Australian Broadcasting Commission (Filmstruck, First
Take, and The Cutting Room), and co-edited the ABC book
programme Books and Writing. During the 1980s, he advised a
number of Australian film-funding bodies in a consulting capacity.
In 1989, Baxter moved to Los Angeles to work as a screenwriter and film
journalist. The following year, he met the French filmmaker
Marie-Dominique Montel, fell in love, and moved to Paris to marry her —
not speaking a word of French. He has lived there ever since, in the
Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighbourhood, in the same building that once housed
Sylvia Beach, the legendary publisher of James Joyce. They have one
daughter, Louise. In Paris, Baxter embarked on an extraordinarily prolific
second act, writing biographies of some of the cinema's greatest directors:
Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Stanley
Kubrick, George Lucas, and Robert De Niro. His 1973 critical account of Ken
Russell — An Appalling Talent — had been the first book-length
study of that filmmaker.
It is Baxter's autobiographical writing about Paris, however, that has
brought him his widest readership. His Paris memoirs include
A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict,
an affectionate account of a lifelong obsession with collecting books;
We'll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light,
which the Sunday Times of London said "towers above most recent
memoirs of life abroad"; and
Immoveable Feast: A Paris Christmas,
the charming account of how an Australian who couldn't cook was asked to
prepare Christmas dinner for eighteen skeptical French in-laws — which the
New York Times Book Review called "entertaining, often very funny"
and Publishers Weekly compared favorably to David Sedaris.
The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris
followed, praised by the Boston Globe as "the next best thing to
a Paris vacation." His culinary memoir
The Perfect Meal: In Search of the Lost Tastes of France
won the IACP Award for Culinary Travel.
Five Nights in Paris: After Dark in the City of Light
made the New Zealand bestseller list in 2015, and
A Year in Paris: Season by Season in the City of Light
continues the series. Some of his books have been translated into Japanese
and Chinese.
Beyond writing, Baxter co-directs the annual Paris Writers Workshop and
leads popular literary walking tours through the city for visitors and
residents alike. He is an avid collector of modern first editions and can
frequently be found prowling the bouquinistes along the Seine.
His work has been published in the New York Times, the
Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, and Vogue.
Born: December 14, 1939
Birthplace: Randwick, New South Wales
