John Burnside
Encyclopedia
Background
Burnside studied English and European Languages at Cambridge College of Arts and Technology. A former computer software engineer, he has been a freelance writer since 1996. He is a former Writer in Residence at the University of DundeeUniversity of Dundee
The University of Dundee is a university based in the city and Royal burgh of Dundee on eastern coast of the central Lowlands of Scotland and with a small number of institutions elsewhere....
and is now Professor in Creative Writing at St Andrews University. His first collection of poetry, The Broon Hoop, was published in 1988 and won a Scottish Arts Council
Scottish Arts Council
The Scottish Arts Council is a Scottish public body that distributes funding from the Scottish Government, and is the leading national organisation for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland...
Book Award. Other poetry collections include Common Knowledge (1991), Feast Days (1992), winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
The Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize is a British literary prize established in 1963 in tribute to Geoffrey Faber, founder and first Chairman publisher Faber & Faber...
, and The Asylum Dance (2000), winner of the Whitbread Poetry Award
2000 Whitbread Awards
The Whitbread Awards are among the United Kingdom's most prestigious literary awards. They were launched in 1971, are given both for high literary merit but also for works that are enjoyable reading and whose aim is to convey the enjoyment of reading to the widest possible audience...
and shortlisted for both the Forward Poetry Prize
Forward Poetry Prize
The Forward Poetry Prizes were created in 1991. The aim of the prizes is to extend the audience for contemporary poetry. Until the T.S. Eliot Prize remuneration was increased to £15,000 plus £1000 to each of nine runners-up, the Forward was the United Kingdom's most valuable annual poetry...
(Best Poetry Collection of the Year) and the T. S. Eliot Prize
T. S. Eliot Prize
The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is awarded by the Poetry Book Society to "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland" in any particular year. The Prize was inaugurated in 1993 in celebration of the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and in...
. The Light Trap (2001) was also shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize.
Burnside is also the author of a collection of short stories, Burning Elvis (2000), and several novels, including The Dumb House (1997), The Mercy Boys (1999) (winner of the Encore Award
Encore Award
The £10,000 Encore Award for the best second novel - now awarded biennially - was first awarded in 1990. It is administered by the Society of Authors and is sponsored by Lucy Astor. The award fills a niche in the catalogue of literary prizes by celebrating the achievement of outstanding second...
) and The Locust Room (2001), which is set in Cambridge in 1975, and explores the consequences of a series of violent rapes. His poetry collection, The Good Neighbour (2005), was shortlisted for the 2005 Forward Poetry Prize (Best Collection). He also writes a column for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper. Burnside was a judge of the 2007 Griffin Poetry Prize
Griffin Poetry Prize
The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. The awards go to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language....
. He is a member of the judging panel for the 2011 Manchester Fiction Prize
Manchester Fiction Prize
The Manchester Fiction Prize is a literary award celebrating excellence in creative writing. It was launched by Carol Ann Duffy and The Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2009, as the second phase of the annual Manchester Writing Competition The Manchester Fiction...
, and has the same year been honored the Petrarca-Preis
Petrarca-Preis
Petrarca-Preis is a European literary award named after the Italian Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarca or Petrarch. It was founded in 1975 by German art historian and publisher Hubert Burda, and is primarily designed for contemporary European poets, but also epicists appear in the list of...
, a major German international literary prize.
Awards
- 1988 Scottish Arts Council Book Award, for The Broon Hoop
- 1991 Scottish Arts Council Book Award, for Common Knowledge
- 1994 Geoffrey Faber Memorial PrizeGeoffrey Faber Memorial PrizeThe Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize is a British literary prize established in 1963 in tribute to Geoffrey Faber, founder and first Chairman publisher Faber & Faber...
, for Feast Days - 1999 Encore AwardEncore AwardThe £10,000 Encore Award for the best second novel - now awarded biennially - was first awarded in 1990. It is administered by the Society of Authors and is sponsored by Lucy Astor. The award fills a niche in the catalogue of literary prizes by celebrating the achievement of outstanding second...
for The Mercy Boys - 2000 Forward Poetry PrizeForward Poetry PrizeThe Forward Poetry Prizes were created in 1991. The aim of the prizes is to extend the audience for contemporary poetry. Until the T.S. Eliot Prize remuneration was increased to £15,000 plus £1000 to each of nine runners-up, the Forward was the United Kingdom's most valuable annual poetry...
(Best Collection – shortlist), for The Asylum Dance - 2000 T. S. Eliot PrizeT. S. Eliot PrizeThe T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is awarded by the Poetry Book Society to "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland" in any particular year. The Prize was inaugurated in 1993 in celebration of the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and in...
(shortlist), for The Asylum Dance - 2000 Whitbread Book Award, Poetry Award, for The Asylum Dance
- 2002 Saltire SocietySaltire SocietyThe Saltire Society was established in 1936 to encourage everything that might improve the quality of life in Scotland and restore the country to its proper place as a creative force in European civilisation....
Scottish Book of the Year Award (shortlist), for The Light Trap - 2002 T. S. Eliot PrizeT. S. Eliot PrizeThe T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is awarded by the Poetry Book Society to "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland" in any particular year. The Prize was inaugurated in 1993 in celebration of the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and in...
(shortlist), for The Light Trap - 2005 Forward Poetry PrizeForward Poetry PrizeThe Forward Poetry Prizes were created in 1991. The aim of the prizes is to extend the audience for contemporary poetry. Until the T.S. Eliot Prize remuneration was increased to £15,000 plus £1000 to each of nine runners-up, the Forward was the United Kingdom's most valuable annual poetry...
(Best Collection - shortlist), for The Good Neighbour - 2006 Saltire SocietySaltire SocietyThe Saltire Society was established in 1936 to encourage everything that might improve the quality of life in Scotland and restore the country to its proper place as a creative force in European civilisation....
Scottish Book of the Year Award for A Lie About My Father - 2008 Catherine Maclean Prize (shortlist) for The Devil's Footprints
- 2008 Cholmondeley AwardCholmondeley AwardThe Cholmondeley Award is an annual award for poetry given by the Society of Authors in the United Kingdom. Awards honour distinguished poets, from a fund endowed by the late Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1966...
- 2011 Petrarca-PreisPetrarca-PreisPetrarca-Preis is a European literary award named after the Italian Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarca or Petrarch. It was founded in 1975 by German art historian and publisher Hubert Burda, and is primarily designed for contemporary European poets, but also epicists appear in the list of...
- 2011 PEN/Ackerley prize (shortlist) for Waking Up in Toytown
- 2011 Corine Literature PrizeCorine Literature PrizeThe Corine – International Book Prize, as it is officially called, is a German literature prize created by theBavarian Landesverband of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels first awarded in 2001...
for A Lie About My Father - 2011 Forward Prize for Black Cat Bone
- 2011 Costa Book Awards2011 Costa Book AwardsThe shortlists were announced on 16 November 2011. The winners in each category will be announced in January 2012.-Children's Book:Winner:*TBDShortlist:*Martyn Bedford, Flip*Frank Cottrell Boyce, The Unforgotten Coat...
(Novel), shortlist, A Summer of Drowning
Poetry collections
- The Broon 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, 1995)
- 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)
- Wild Reckoning (Gulbenkian, 2004), joint editor with Maurice Riordan of this anthology of ecology-related poems
- 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, September 2009)
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)
Non-Fiction
- 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)
Screen
- DiceDice (TV mini-series)Dice is a Canada/UK co-produced drama television mini-series. It was directed by Rachel Talalay and written by A. L. Kennedy and John Burnside, inspired by cult 70s novel The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart.-Plot:...
(with A. L. KennedyA. L. KennedyAlison Louise Kennedy is a Scottish writer of novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is known for a characteristically dark tone, a blending of realism and fantasy, and for her serious approach to her work...
), a series for television, produced by Cité-Amérique, Canada