The Empire of Forgetting
$31.50
- Paperback
64 pages
- Release Date
18 November 2025
Summary
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-guid…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781787334557 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1787334554 |
| Author: | John Burnside |
| Publisher: | Vintage Publishing |
| Imprint: | Jonathan Cape |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 64 |
| Release Date: | 18 November 2025 |
| Weight: | 86g |
| Dimensions: | 198mm x 132mm x 5mm |
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What They're Saying
Critics Review
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 *
In a few lines [of Burnside], are the qualities that so move me in his prose: the confluence of solitude and communion; the pain and solace of a ravaged but persistent physical landscape. Burnside’s life was dedicated to its ruthless excavation and enshrinement – Megan Nolan * Observer *
[In] The Empire of Forgetting…there are meditations on nature, faith…and death to give deep pleasure to poetry readers * Oldie, Christmas Gift Guide 2025 *
The Empire of Forgetting has a power and subtlety as striking as anything in his [Burnside’s] expansive oeuvre * Times Literary Supplement *
About The Author
John Burnside
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.
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