Reporter and poet … Gordon Burn.
My hero: Gordon Burn by David Peace
Reality without imagination is only half of reality, argued Buñuel. And it is this argument between reality and imagination that runs through every sentence Gordon Burn ever wrote, equally in his non-fiction and in his fiction. A reporter and a poet, Gordon saw and Gordon felt. And he empathised. And animated and illuminated people as elusive and familiar, as real and imagined as Steve Davis and Peter Sutcliffe, Damien Hirst and Duncan Edwards, George Best and Rosemary West, Alma Cogan and Madeline McCann, Gilbert and George and Tony and Gordon. All our obsessions are here: sport and crime, art and politics, celebrity and fame, sex and violence, death and silence, the surfaces and the depths. And like BS Johnson or WG Sebald, Derek Raymond or Eoin McNamee, Gordon is a writer other writers read. And learn from and are inspired by. Particularly the first and the last novels, Alma Cogan and Born Yesterday, which show the opportunity and potential for a truly modern novel. And there is no greater testimony to Gordon's continued influence and relevance than the inaugural shortlist for the prize founded in his memory: How I Killed Margaret Thatcher by Anthony Cartwright, The Footballer Who Could Fly by Duncan Hamilton, People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry, Pig Iron by Benjamin Myers and Myra, Beyond Saddleworth by Jean Rafferty. Fictions and non-fictions. In all their glories and in all their deceits. Everything real, everything imagined. In the cross-hairs, asking for truth. And so I hope Gordon would have approved. Because it is an honour to be one of the judges for this prize and it was a privilege to have been his friend.
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