Anthony Burgess’s time in Rome was one of the most productive periods in his creative life. With his wife Liana and son Andrea, he lived in an apartment on the Piazza di Santa Cecilia in the Trastevere district of Rome, and in a house in the lakeside town of Bracciano outside the city. Burgess wrote […]
If Beard’s Roman Women is an odd book, ABBA ABBA, the other half of Burgess’s reaction to his time in Italy in the 1970s, is perhaps even odder still. The book is divided into two sections: Part One is a short historical novel of sorts, while Part Two consists mainly of poems translated into English […]
ABBA ABBA is one of Anthony Burgess’s most inventive works, blending historical fiction, poetry and translation into a novel which celebrates John Keats and the sonnet form. Set in Rome during the winter of 1820-21, the first part of ABBA ABBA recounts Keats’s final weeks and his eventual death from tuberculosis in a house on […]
Our £3000 journalism prize is to be awarded at a ceremony to be hosted in London by the Observer newspaper, on Wednesday 20 February 2019. The International Anthony Burgess Foundation announces the shortlist for the Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism. Now in its seventh year, the £3000 prize is for lively and thought-provoking reviews […]
In 2013, the curators of the exhibition David Bowie Is revealed a list of the singer’s 100 favourite books. Among the titles that Bowie held dear are novels, political books, musical biographies and comic books, all of which reveal much about his preoccupations and the influences on his own creative output. Two of Anthony Burgess’s […]
Anthony Burgess wrote about Christmas in a number of different contexts. His responses are always distinctive and flavoursome, like a glass of Madeira or a traditional British Christmas pudding, stuffed with fruit and sixpence coins. In the first volume of his autobiography, Little Wilson and Big God, Burgess recalls that one of his earliest published […]
From 1963 to 1968 Anthony Burgess was an occasional television critic for the Listener. The majority of his published reviews were of documentaries, but towards the end of his tenure he also reviewed some television drama, including The Prisoner, the classic series which blends the tropes of James Bond secret agents with those of science fiction. […]
On December 7th, we welcome Manchester’s No Dice Collective as they team up with The Writing Squad for an end-of-the-world themed concert called Last Christmas especially commissioned by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation. Taking inspiration from the Burgess Foundation’s #FutureFictions season about all things apocalyptic, Last Christmas features music and spoken word by some of […]
Anthony Burgess was just ten years old when he saw Fritz Lang’s groundbreaking fantasy Metropolis on its release in Manchester in 1927. This, combined with his experience of the celebrated total eclipse of the sun in the same year, left a profound impression on him. Burgess remained fascinated by science fiction throughout his life. Burgess […]
The Observer / Burgess prize is back, and is open to anyone internationally who has an interest in reviewing the arts. We set up this prize in partnership with The Observer newspaper to provide writers with a chance to take the next step in their career, and to champion the very best new critical writing. Anthony […]