PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Amongst the most acclaimed writers of his generation, John Burnside has just been awarded the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in literature. His novels, short stories, poetry and memoirs have won numerous other awards, including the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Whitbread Poetry Award, the Petrarca Prize and the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year. In 2011 Black Cat Bone won both the Forward and the T.S. Eliot Prizes for poetry. His most recent books are The Music of Time- Poetry in the Twentieth Century and Aurochs and Auks- Essays on Mortality and Extinction. He is a professor in the School of English at St Andrews University.
A masterful storyteller... I'm in safe hands whenever I pick up a book by him. -- Jen Campbell * The Times, on ASHLAND & VINE * As a poet, Burnside has peripheral vision: he is always glimpsing other worlds out of the corner of his eye... Never stops registering the ways in which beauty makes life worth living. -- Kate Kellaway * Observer, on STILL LIFE WITH FEEDING SNAKE * Few writers manage distinction in even one form. John Burnside has achieved it in two [poetry and fiction]... A Burnside narrative stays in the mind like a half-broken dream; it's often hard to pin down just why it is so compelling... If you have hitherto admired John Burnside in only one genre, now is the time to take the smallest of sideways steps and read both. -- Fiona Sampson * New Statesman, on ASHLAND & VINE and STILL LIFE WITH FEEDING SNAKE *
