Martin Amis, who died in May 2023 at the age of 73, was one of the most widely admired figures in Anglo-American literary fiction, bestriding the world of books like a colossus from the 1970s until the 2020s. He engaged widely with contemporary fiction through his work as a literary journalist and interviewer. It was […]
There seems to be a widespread assumption, often repeated on social media, that Anthony Burgess was a political conservative whose novels promote a right-wing agenda. Although Burgess sometimes claimed to take no interest in party politics, his position turns out to be a more complicated one than expected. Looking into his novels, autobiographical works and […]
The second in our series of Dystopian Dialogues is a conversation with Nathan Waddell from the University of Birmingham about George Orwell, Anthony Burgess and dystopia. Burgess was strongly influenced by Orwell, and in his book 1985 he places Nineteen Eighty-Four in the context of a ravaged post-war Britain. He writes: ‘You saw the effects […]
2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the first release of Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange and 60 years since Anthony Burgess completed his most famous novel. To celebrate the anniversary, we present an online series called The Clockwork Collection, with a focus on A Clockwork Orange. Each month, we’ll be sharing a […]
Anthony Burgess published this essay to mark the fortieth anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima in August 1985. It is reprinted here as part of our online series ‘Burgess and the Atomic Age’, which includes poetry, performance and new articles. The Emperor Hirohito accepted the Allied terms on 14 August 1945, and Japan’s formal surrender […]
Born in 1917, Anthony Burgess would have celebrated his 103rd birthday on 25 February 2020. But what did he think the twenty-first century would be like? It is possible to offer an answer to this question, thanks to a newly-discovered document from the archive. Back in the mists of 1984, the year when Anthony Burgess […]
This copy of Frank Herbert’s Dune dates from 1966, when Anthony Burgess reviewed it for the Observer. He was impressed by the scope of the book and by the calibre of Herbert’s literary creation. The review displays a wide knowledge of science-fiction conventions. Dune is set on Arrakis, a desert planet on which humans mine […]