The Paper Lantern

When future generations come to ask themselves when England lost it and what it lost, they will pick up The Paper Lantern' Michael Hofmann, TLS

'A remarkable achievement in a book that feels at once timely and deeply considered' Irish Times

'A book that speaks powerfully about what it is to be English and about the impact of coronavirus on our national psyche' Observer

'Will Burns is the new Defoe' Adelle Stripe

Set in a shuttered pub - The Paper Lantern - in a village in the very middle of the country adjacent to the Prime Minister's Chequers Estate, an unnamed narrator embarks on a series of walks in the Chiltern Hills. As he charts and interrogates the shifts in mood and understanding that have defined a transformative period in his own history and that of the surrounding area, he reveals a past scarred with trauma and a present lacking compass. Traversing local raves in secret valleys, to climate change and capitalism, The Paper Lantern creates a tangible, lived-in complicated rendering of a place, at the moment when the very sense of place itself is being questioned.

Will Burns is a poet and writer based in Buckinghamshire. He began publishing his poetry in 2014 when he was named a Faber & Faber New Poet, and since then he has also published poetry pamphlets with Clutag Press, Rough Trade Books and his first full collection, COUNTRY MUSIC, with Offord Road Books in 2020, which was Book of the Week in the London Review Bookshop.


Will is a long-time contributor to the online nature-writing journal Caught by the River, and his work has been discussed in the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, Poetry Review and the Independent.