The Grassling by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett
'A subtle, moving celebration of place and connectedness . . . The Grassling brings the sounds, smells and sights of the countryside alive like few other books. Burnett stretches the limits of prose, infusing it with poetic intensity to create a powerful, original voice' PD Smith, Guardian What fills my lungs is wider than breath could be. It is a place and a language torn, matted and melded; flowered and chiming with bones. That breath is that place and until I get there I will not really be breathing. Spurred on by her father's declining health and inspired by the history he once wrote of his small Devon village, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett delves through layers of memory, language and natural history to tell a powerful story of how the land shapes us and speaks to us. The Grassling is a book about roots: what it means to belong when the soil beneath our feet is constantly shifting, when the people and places that nurtured us are slipping away.
A subtle, moving celebration of place and connectedness. . The Grassling brings the sounds, smells and sights of the countryside alive like few other books. Burnett stretches the limits of prose, infusing it with poetic intensity to create a powerful, original voice . . . Her prose is both sinuous and knotty, stretching language to capture what is often beyond words, while slowing down the process of reading, allowing us to savour them. -- PD Smith * Guardian *
Exquisite . . . needs to be savoured slowly, and then read again. Burnett is breaking new ground as a mixed-heritage English/Kenyan woman connecting so deeply to the historic land of her father's family in the West Country -- Bernardine Evaristo
Burnett manages the delicate feat of maintaining our sense of reverence for the nebulous Anglo-Saxon romanticism..., but twins it with astute scientific nous which never strays into the esoteric. She does this with such joy that we cannot help but want to join in... a heartening read. -- Stephanie Sy-Quia * The Quietus *
With a blend of poetry, memoir and a uniquely experimental, sensory style of nature writing, The Grassling celebrates the lusciousness of both land and language ... Ideas that might in a lesser writer have seemed whimsical are grounded by the rich layers of Burnett's prose. * TLS *
A poetic, lyrical tribute to the earth beneath our feet . . . Burnett is one of the freshest voices in the current crop of nature writers * Countryfile *
This astonishingly beautiful ode to the sights, sounds and smells of the countryside . . . [evokes] a richly immersive sense of the natural world and our place within it. * Country Living *
Exquisite . . . needs to be savoured slowly, and then read again. Burnett is breaking new ground as a mixed-heritage English/Kenyan woman connecting so deeply to the historic land of her father's family in the West Country -- Bernardine Evaristo
Burnett manages the delicate feat of maintaining our sense of reverence for the nebulous Anglo-Saxon romanticism..., but twins it with astute scientific nous which never strays into the esoteric. She does this with such joy that we cannot help but want to join in... a heartening read. -- Stephanie Sy-Quia * The Quietus *
With a blend of poetry, memoir and a uniquely experimental, sensory style of nature writing, The Grassling celebrates the lusciousness of both land and language ... Ideas that might in a lesser writer have seemed whimsical are grounded by the rich layers of Burnett's prose. * TLS *
A poetic, lyrical tribute to the earth beneath our feet . . . Burnett is one of the freshest voices in the current crop of nature writers * Countryfile *
This astonishingly beautiful ode to the sights, sounds and smells of the countryside . . . [evokes] a richly immersive sense of the natural world and our place within it. * Country Living *
Elizabeth-Jane Burnett is a writer of English and Kenyan heritage. She was born in Devon and her work is inspired by the landscape in which she was raised. She is the author of Swims, a Sunday Times Poetry Book of the Year, and her poetry has been highly commended in the Forward Prize.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780241374122 |
| ISBN 10 | 024137412X |
| Title | The Grassling |
| Author | Elizabeth-Jane Burnett |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Year published | 2019-03-28 |
| Number of pages | 208 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |