Theatre & dance / Literature / Comedy
Howard Buten
1950–2025
· novelist, clown, psychologist
Detroit-born writer and clown 'Buffo', whose novel When I Was Five I Killed Myself sold over a million copies in France, where he also worked with autistic children.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
aged 74- Also known as
- Buffo
- Detroit years
- 1950s–1960s
- Field
- Theatre & dance, Literature, Comedy
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Buten was born in Detroit and started acting as a small child, staging scenes from favorite stories with the neighborhood children. Meeting an autistic child as a young man set the course of his life: he became a researcher, clinical psychologist and therapist, and later founded a clinic for autistic children in Paris. At the same time he trained at the Ringling Bros. clown college and created Buffo, a gentle, wordless theater clown who became well known in France. His first novel, When I Was Five I Killed Myself (1981), told from the viewpoint of a troubled boy, was little noticed in the United States but sold more than a million copies in France and was filmed there in 1994. He wrote several more books, was named a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1991, and died in 2025.
Highlights
- Born in Detroit; acted in neighborhood plays as a child
- Graduate of the Ringling Bros. clown college; created the stage clown Buffo
- Novel When I Was Five I Killed Myself (1981) sold over a million copies in France
- Founded a clinic for autistic children in Paris
- Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1991)