The Empire of Forgetting

John Burnside

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Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

JONATHAN CAPE
25 November 2025

Poetry; Poetry by individual poets

John Burnside's last collection of new poems gathers around a single theme - mortality - to create a powerfully moving exploration of memory, forgetting and the seven ages.

A powerful exploration of life and death, illness and grace, wonder and beauty, in the posthumous collection from one of our greatest contemporary poets

'It's impossible not to love the world more when reading Burnside' GUARDIAN

'A master of language' HILARY MANTEL

John Burnside's last collection of new poems gathers around a single theme - mortality - and draws on his faltering health and earlier glances with death, creating a powerfully moving exploration of memory, forgetting and the seven ages.

Here, as always, there is a clear-eyed curiosity; a sense of wonder at the beleaguered natural world and its endless mutability - its hidden beauty, often suddenly disclosed - and a deep faith in its old gods. Burnside was always as much a spirit-guide as a poet, and here, in the Empire of Forgetting, we are never far from a fresh alertness to the world, to epiphany - a sudden, spiritual manifestation.

There is a sense, too, in these last poems, of a man having found a 'dwelling place' - a sense of rest and peace and settlement with the world. A state of grace.

'Among the best writers of his generation, fully voiced and perfectly pitched' ANDREW O'HAGAN

'A titan of literature' KATHLEEN JAMIE

By: John Burnside
Imprint: JONATHAN CAPE
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 197mm, Width: 131mm, Spine: 6mm
Weight: 86g
ISBN: 9781787334557
ISBN 10: 1787334554
Pages: 64
Publication Date: 25 November 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

John Burnside was among the most acclaimed writers of his generation. His novels, short stories, poetry and memoirs won numerous awards, including the Geoffrey Faber Memorial, Saltire Scottish Book of the Year and, in 2023, he received the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in literature. In 2011 Black Cat Bone won both the Forward and the T.S. Eliot Prizes for poetry. He died in 2024.

Reviews for The Empire of Forgetting

It’s our great good fortune…that Burnside’s closing work is also one of his finest… It’s impossible not to love the world more when reading Burnside, and impossible not to be more scared and saddened while doing so. He was the ideal laureate of our age * Guardian * An elegiac evensong of a book, The Empire of Forgetting is Burnside’s last collection, and is a resonant demonstration of his lasting power -- Seán Hewitt * Guardian *