John Burnside

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Scottish writer (1955–2024)

title: "John Burnside" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1955-births", "2024-deaths", "20th-century-scottish-male-writers", "20th-century-scottish-poets", "21st-century-british-male-writers", "21st-century-scottish-poets", "21st-century-scottish-male-writers", "academics-of-the-university-of-st-andrews", "alumni-of-anglia-ruskin-university", "british-columnists", "fellows-of-the-royal-society-of-literature", "people-associated-with-the-university-of-dundee", "people-from-corby", "people-from-cowdenbeath", "scottish-male-poets", "t.-s.-eliot-prize-winners", "writers-of-gothic-fiction"] description: "Scottish writer (1955–2024)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burnside" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Scottish writer (1955–2024) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

FieldValue
honorific_suffix
imageJohn Burnside.jpg
captionBurnside in 2012
birth_date
birth_placeDunfermline, Scotland
death_date
occupationWriter
educationCambridge College of Arts and Technology
notable_worksThe Hoop
Common Knowledge
A Lie About My Father
Black Cat Bone
awards
::

| name = | honorific_suffix = | image = John Burnside.jpg | caption = Burnside in 2012 | birth_date = | birth_place = Dunfermline, Scotland | death_date = | death_place = | occupation = Writer | education = Cambridge College of Arts and Technology | notable_works = The Hoop Common Knowledge A Lie About My Father Black Cat Bone | awards =

John Burnside (19 March 1955 – 29 May 2024) was a Scottish writer. He was one of four poets (with Ted Hughes, Sean O'Brien and Jason Allen-Paisant) to have won the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for a single book – in this case, for Black Cat Bone in 2011. In 2023, he won the David Cohen Prize in recognition of his full body of work.

Life and works

Burnside was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and raised in Cowdenbeath and Corby. He studied English and European Thought and Literature at Cambridge College of Arts and Technology. A former computer software engineer, he was a freelance writer after 1996. He was a former Writer in Residence at the University of Dundee and was Professor in Creative Writing at the University of St Andrews, where he taught creative writing, literature and ecology and American poetry.

His first collection of poetry, The Hoop, was published in 1988 and won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award. Other poetry collections by Burnside include Common Knowledge (1991), Feast Days (1992), winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and The Asylum Dance (2000), winner of the Whitbread Poetry Award and shortlisted for both the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year) and the T. S. Eliot Prize. The Light Trap (2001) was also shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize.

Burnside was also the author of two collections of short stories, Burning Elvis (2000), and *Something Like Happy * (2013), as well as several novels, including The Dumb House (1997), The Devil's Footprints, (2007), Glister, (2009) and A Summer of Drowning, (2011). His multi-award winning memoir, A Lie About My Father, was published in 2006 and its successor, Waking up in Toytown, in 2010. A Lie About My Father earned him the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year in 2006, alongside the Sundial Scottish Arts Council Non-fiction Book of the Year and the CORINE International Literature Prize. In 2008 he won the Cholmondeley Award. A further memoir, I Put A Spell On You, combined personal history with reflections on romantic love, magic and popular music. His short stories and feature essays have appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including The New Yorker, The Guardian and The London Review of Books, among others. He also wrote an occasional nature column for the New Statesman. In 2011 he received the Petrarca-Preis, a major German international literary prize.

Burnside's work was inspired by his engagement with nature, environment and deep ecology. His collection of short stories, Something Like Happy, was published in 2013.

Burnside was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (elected in 1999) and in March 2016 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's National Academy for science and letters.

He also lectured annually and oversaw the judging of the writing prize at the Alpine Fellowship.

Burnside died after a short illness on 29 May 2024, at the age of 69.

Awards

Bibliography

Poetry collections

  • The Hoop (Carcanet, 1988)
  • Common Knowledge (Secker and Warburg, London, 1991)
  • Feast Days (Secker and Warburg, London, 1992)
  • The Myth of the Twin (Jonathan Cape, London, 1994)
  • Swimming in the Flood (Jonathan Cape, London, 1995)
  • Penguin Modern Poets (Penguin, 1996)
  • A Normal Skin (Jonathan Cape, London, 1997)
  • The Asylum Dance (Jonathan Cape, London, 2000)
  • The Light Trap (Jonathan Cape, London, 2002)
  • A Poet's Polemic (2003)
  • The Good Neighbour (Jonathan Cape, 2005)
  • Selected Poems (Jonathan Cape, 2006)
  • Gift Songs (Jonathan Cape, 2007)
  • The Hunt in the Forest (Jonathan Cape, 2009)
  • Black Cat Bone (Jonathan Cape, 2011)
  • All One Breath (Jonathan Cape, 2014)
  • Still Life with Feeding Snake (Jonathan Cape, 2017)
  • In the Name of the Bee/Im Namen der Biene (Golden Luft, Mainz 2018)
  • Learning to Sleep (Jonathan Cape, 2021)
  • Apostasy (Dare-Gale Press, 2022)
  • Apostasy/Apostasie (Golden Luft, Mainz 2023)
  • Ruin, Blossom (Vintage Publishing, Jonathan Cape, 2024)
  • The Empire of Forgetting (Jonathan Cape, 2025)

Fiction

  • The Dumb House (Jonathan Cape, London, 1997)
  • The Mercy Boys (Jonathan Cape, London, 1999)
  • Burning Elvis (Jonathan Cape, London, 2000)
  • The Locust Room (Jonathan Cape, London, 2001)
  • Living Nowhere (Jonathan Cape, London, 2003)
  • The Devil's Footprints (Jonathan Cape, 2007)
  • Glister (Jonathan Cape, 2008)
  • A Summer of Drowning (Jonathan Cape, 2011)
  • Something Like Happy (Jonathan Cape, 2013)
  • Ashland & Vine (Jonathan Cape, 2017)
  • Havergey (Little Toller, 2017)

Non-fiction

  • Wild Reckoning (Gulbenkian, 2004), joint editor with Maurice Riordan of this anthology of ecology-related poems
  • A Lie About My Father (biography, 2006)
  • Wallace Stevens : poems / selected by John Burnside (Poet to Poet Series, Faber and Faber, 2008)
  • Waking up in Toytown (biography, Jonathan Cape, 2010)
  • I Put a Spell on You (biography, Jonathan Cape, 2014)
  • The Music of Time: Poetry in the Twentieth Century (literary criticism, 2019)
  • Aurochs and Auks: Essays on mortality and extinction (Little Toller Books, 2021)

Screen

  • Dice (with A. L. Kennedy), a series for television, produced by Cité-Amérique, Canada

Critical studies

  • John Burnside: Contemporary Critical Perspectives (London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2020).
  • "Dwelling Places: An Appreciation of John Burnside", special edition of Agenda magazine, Vol. 45, No 4/Vol. 46, No 1, Spring/Summer 2011

References

References

  1. Creamer, Ella. (9 November 2023). "John Burnside wins the 2023 David Cohen prize for amazing body of work". The Guardian.
  2. Cowan, Andrew. (27 June 2003). "Living Nowhere by John Burnside". [[The Independent]].
  3. Ferguson, Ron. (2006). "Helicopter Dreams – the quest for the Holy Grail". Famedram.
  4. (4 January 2001). "Whitbread winners profiled". BBC News.
  5. "Staff Profile, University of St Andrews".
  6. "Judges > John Burnside". [[Booker Prize]].
  7. Sampson, Fiona. (22 January 2010). "Waking Up In Toytown, By John Burnside". The Independent.
  8. "Poet portrait unveiled by National Galleries {{!}} University of St Andrews news".
  9. (15 November 2013). "Schottische Poesie und slowenische Prosa". [[Focus (German magazine).
  10. "Profile of John Burnside". Christchurch City Libraries.
  11. Kelly, Stuart. (19 January 2013). "Something Like Happy by John Burnside – review". The Guardian.
  12. (September 2023). "Fellows > Burnside, John". [[Royal Society of Literature]].
  13. "The Royal Society of Edinburgh | 2016 Elected Fellows".
  14. "Journal > Spring". [[Alpine Fellowship]].
  15. Knight, Lucy. (31 May 2024). "John Burnside, author of Black Cat Bone, dies aged 69".
  16. Jonathan Cape. (31 May 2024). "We are devastated by the death of our beloved writer John Burnside, one of the most acclaimed of his generation. Hannah Westland, Publishing Director at Jonathan Cape, says: 'To read him was to feel a lighting up of the darkness.'".
  17. (6 October 2011). "'Vitality of language' earns Burnside prestigious prize". The Scotsman.
  18. "Poet > John Burnside". [[Poetry Archive]].
  19. (12 December 2018). "Gwendoline Riley wins the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize 2017 for fiction". [[Faber & Faber]].
  20. (8 September 2023). "The Encore Award". [[Royal Society of Literature]].
  21. Allen, Rachel. (16 August 2011). "John Burnside – Interview". [[Granta]].
  22. Ferguson, Brian. (15 November 2013). "Gaelic science fiction novel wins literary prize". The Scotsman.
  23. Dammann, Guy. (19 June 2008). "Burnside, Thirlwell and Riley among Society of Authors winners". The Guardian.
  24. (5 October 2011). "John Burnside wins Forward poetry prize". BBC News.
  25. (16 January 2012). "Burnside, who has won the TS Eliot prize for 2011 for Black Cat Bone, talks to Claire Armitstead". The Guardian.
  26. "Belletristikpreis des ZEIT Verlages". Corine Internationaler Buchpreis.
  27. (15 November 2011). "Costa book awards 2011: the shortlists – in pictures". [[The Guardian]].
  28. (12 July 2011). "Shortlist announced for PEN/Ackerley Prize 2011". English PEN.
  29. "John Burnside 2012". Spycher Literaturpreis Leuk.
  30. Zipse, Katrin. (10 June 2018). "«Coldhaven» von John Burnside". [[Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen]].
  31. "ARD-Hörspieldatenbank".
  32. (25 June 2018). "Radio awards for Prof John Burnside and Olly Emanuel". [[University of St Andrews]].
  33. Sy-Quia, Stephanie. (9 December 2022). "Books of Revelation. Poetry pamphlets and this year's Michael Marks awards". [[The Times Literary Supplement]].
  34. "Poet > John Burnside > Selected Bibliography". [[Scottish Poetry Library]].
  35. "Writers > John Burnside > Bibliography". [[British Council]].
  36. Redmond, John. (21 August 1997). "War against the Grown-Ups". [[London Review of Books]].
  37. "John Burnside, A Poet's Polemic". [[The Literary Encyclopedia]].
  38. Bainbridge, Charles. (28 April 2007). "A space that nobody owns". The Guardian.
  39. Heptonstall, Geoffrey. (Jun–Jul 2014). "Independent metaphysics". [[The London Magazine]].
  40. Kellaway, Kate. (16 February 2014). "All One Breath by John Burnside – review". The Observer.
  41. O'Brien, Sean. (2 March 2014). "Book review: All One Breath by John Burnside".
  42. "John Burnside. Apostasie/Apostasy. Gedichte/Poems (dt./engl.)". Golden Luft.
  43. Saynor, James. (12 July 1998). "Cottage of Horrors". [[The New York Times]].
  44. King, Francis. (July 2003). "Hell's Antechamber. Living Nowhere By John Burnside". [[Literary Review]].
  45. Craig, Amanda. (June 2008). "Urban Degeneration. Glister By John Burnside". [[Literary Review]].
  46. Crown, Sarah. (26 August 2011). "John Burnside: a life in writing". The Guardian.
  47. Marks, Thomas. (February 2017). "Small-Town Scheherazade. Ashland & Vine By John Burnside". [[Literary Review]].
  48. Major, Nick. (3 April 2017). "Book Review: Meditations on a fragmentary Scottish utopia in John Burnside's Havergey". [[The National (Scotland).
  49. Ragg, Edward. (Fall 2011). "Wallace Stevens: Poems Selected by John Burnside (review)". [[The Wallace Stevens Journal]].
  50. Hadley, Tessa. (2 May 2014). "I Put a Spell on You by John Burnside – review". The Guardian.
  51. Stevenson, Guy. (June 2018). "The Colossus of Big Sur. On Henry Miller: Or, How to Be an Anarchist By John Burnside". [[Literary Review]].
  52. Perloff, Marjorie. (14 February 2020). "From confusion sprung". [[The Times Literary Supplement]].
  53. "Aurochs and Auks by John Burnside". [[Wainwright Prize]].
  54. "Film, Drama and Comedy". [[A. L. Kennedy]].
  55. Dósa, Attila. (January 2022). "John Burnside. Ed. by Ben Davies". Forum for Modern Language Studies.
  56. (Spring–Summer 2011). "Dwelling Places: An Appreciation of John Burnside". [[Agenda (poetry journal).

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1955-births2024-deaths20th-century-scottish-male-writers20th-century-scottish-poets21st-century-british-male-writers21st-century-scottish-poets21st-century-scottish-male-writersacademics-of-the-university-of-st-andrewsalumni-of-anglia-ruskin-universitybritish-columnistsfellows-of-the-royal-society-of-literaturepeople-associated-with-the-university-of-dundeepeople-from-corbypeople-from-cowdenbeathscottish-male-poetst.-s.-eliot-prize-winnerswriters-of-gothic-fiction