The New Statesman is delighted by the news that our nature columnist, the poet and novelist John Burnside, will be one of two recipients of the 2013 Eccles British Library Writer in Residence Award (the other is the historian Andrea Wulf). Burnside and Wulf will be awarded £20,000 each; their residencies will begin in January of next year.
Burnside will use his time at the Eccles Centre for American Studies to research a novel based loosely on Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. The narrative will follow a brother and sister from their 1930s childhood in the American South through the rest of the "American century".
The judges for the Award were Professor Richard Carwardine, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, novelist Tracy Chevalier, Professor Philip Davies, Director of the Eccles Centre, Catherine Eccles, literary scout and granddaughter of David and Mary Eccles who endowed the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the Library in 1991, and Carole Holden, Head of the British Library's Americas and Australasian collections. Carwardine said of this year’s winners: "As they bring their formidable and complementary talents to their roles as writers in residence at the British Library, we are sure Andrea Wulf and John Burnside will relish the creative stimulus of working amongst its exceptional holdings."
We look forward, in particular, to seeing the fruits of Burnside's research.
