“As a child, I read a great many books in which animals and birds played significant roles, not only in the narrative itself, but also in creating the emotional and psychological atmosphere of that narrative - the imaginative furniture, as it were, in which any story unfolds.”

Scottish writer

John Burnside was a Scottish writer, known for his poetry and for the recognition his work received in major literary prizes. He was one of four poets to win both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for a single collection, Black Cat Bone, in 2011. In 2023, he received the David Cohen Prize for his body of work.