Interview with a writer: John Burnside

It’s Friday at 10am in a remote field in Fife. John Burnside is taking his morning walk, whilst simultaneously attempting to conduct a conversation with me down a dodgy telephone line. Within seconds he’s speaking about a concept of happiness— or lack of it— that goes back to philosophers such as Nietzsche and Schopenhauer.

‘I’m in the middle of a remote country hill in Scotland, so the reception is not really that good, especially in bad weather like this,’ he tells me, fading in and out of coherence.

As he begins to walk over to his house— and the reception gets slighty better— I’m beginning to picture an idylic, lush, landscape: where Burnside walks for hours, every morning, making mental notes, perhaps gleaning inspiration for another prize winning collection of poetry, or piece of prose fiction.

Closing the door into what sounds like his kitchen, we’re starting to enter into the realm, finally, of what one might conceivably call a normal interview environment.