Tributes paid to award-winning writer John Burnside after his death at 69
Burnside’s most prominent works include Feast Days, The Asylum Dance and Black Cat Bone.
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Multi-award-winning Scottish poet and novelist John Burnside has died aged 69.
His publisher Jonathan Cape announced the poet’s death on Friday afternoon.
In a statement the publisher confirmed Burnside died on Wednesday following a short illness.
They said: “John was amongst the most acclaimed writers of his generation, and published prolifically across many forms – chiefly as a poet, but also as a novelist, memoirist, writer of short stories and academic works – over a career spanning nearly 40 years.”
We cherished and will go on cherishing him and his work
Burnside won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for Feast Days (1992), the Whitbread Poetry Award for The Asylum Dance (2000), the Saltire Book of the Year for A Lie About My Father (2006), and in 2011 won both the TS Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for Black Cat Bone.
He also wrote regularly for a number of publications including The Guardian, the TLS, the London Review of Books and the New Yorker.
Last year, he received the highly prestigious David Cohen Prize, awarded biennially in recognition of an author’s entire body of work.
Born in Dunfermline, Fife, in 1955, Burnside’s early life was spent in Cowdenbeath and then Corby, Northamptonshire.
His work was characterised by deep empathy and understanding. He was finely attuned to the natural world, but also to people. These traits, so clearly visible in his writing, also marked out the man himself
He studied English and European Literature at the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology and went on to become a writer-in-residence at the University of Dundee and a professor in the School of English at the University of St Andrews.
He published his first collection, The Hoop, in 1988, then worked with Robin Robertson, an editor at Secker & Warburg, and later at Jonathan Cape, right up to the publication of his most recent collection, Ruin, Blossom, in 2024.
Hannah Westland, publishing director of Jonathan Cape, said: “John Burnside had a particularly miraculous ability to perceive and articulate both the wonders of the natural world and the everyday miracles that make up our lives.
“His work was mysterious but never mystifying, quite the opposite – he made sense of strangeness and to read him was to feel a lighting-up of the darkness. We cherished and will go on cherishing him and his work.”
Anna Webber, the writer’s literary agent, added: “This is an immense loss. John Burnside had a unique voice that brought pleasure and solace to many readers across the globe.
“His work was characterised by deep empathy and understanding. He was finely attuned to the natural world, but also to people.
“These traits, so clearly visible in his writing, also marked out the man himself.
“John was kind and gentle and generous, and I will miss him terribly.”