An unnamed narrator charts and interrogates the shifts in mood and understanding in his middle-England hometown that have defined the lockdown period

'Will Burns is a soulful English poet of the kind we don't make enough of' MAX PORTER

'Hugely affecting and timely' LUKE TURNER

'A boldly struck chord, one that contains many of the dissonances, but also the harmonies, found in England today' CHRIS POWER

In THE PAPER LANTERN, a single speaker charts and interrogates the shifts in mood and understanding that have defined a surreal, transformative period in both his own history and that of the surrounding area. Set in a shuttered pub - The Paper Lantern - in a village in the very middle of the country adjacent to the Chequers estate, the narrator embarks on a series of walks in the Chiltern Hills, which become the landscape for evocations of a past scarred with trauma and a present lacking compass. From local raves in secret valleys and the history of landmarks such as Halton House, to the fallout of the lockdown period, climate change and capitalism, THE PAPER LANTERN creates a tangible, lived-in, complicated rendering of a place.