The Northern Echo interview

Ben feels the Burn in Durham

Durham-born Ben Myers tells Steve Pratt how he was inspired by the late Tyneside author Gordon Burn. Now, Myers has become the first winner of the Gordon Burn Award

THE writing of Gordon Burn first came to the attention of Ben Myers when he was growing up in Durham. “I became aware of him after my sister said there’s this writer from the North-East and you should read him,” he recalls. So he read Burn’s book Happy Like Murderers about Fred and Rose West. Not only...