Anthony Burgess was a renowned British author, known for his works in fiction and non-fiction. He was born on February 25, 1917, in Manchester and was educated at Xavierian College and later at Birmingham University. Burgess spent a significant amount of time traveling the world, touring southeast Asia, Mediterranean Europe, and England. He served in the military for a substantial period, both on the battlefield and as an education officer.
Burgess is credited with writing numerous books, both fiction and non-fiction, including the Malayan trilogy and works on Shakespeare and D.H. Lawrence. He was also a prolific composer, with over 250 musical works to his name. Additionally, Burgess worked as a screenwriter, with screenplays such as "Moses The Lawgiver" and "Jesus of Nazareth" among his credits.
Anthony Burgess, whose real name was John Burgess Wilson, was a versatile writer known for his seriocomic novels, such as the futuristic classic "A Clockwork Orange" (1962). He was also a prolific composer, linguist, translator, and educationalist. Burgess lived for long periods in southeastern Asia, the United States, and Europe along the Mediterranean Sea, as well as in England.
His fiction encompasses the "Malayan trilogy" on the dying days of empire in the east, the "Enderby quartet" concerning a poet and his muse, "Nothing like the Sun" re-creating the love life of William Shakespeare, and "Earthly Powers," a panoramic saga of the 20th century. He published studies of James Joyce, Ernest Miller Hemingway, Shakespeare, and David Herbert Lawrence, and produced the treatises "Language Made Plain" and "A Mouthful of Air." He was also a prolific journalist, translator, and playwright, with his work appearing in several languages. He translated and adapted plays such as "Cyrano de Bergerac," "Oedipus the King," and "Carmen" for the stage, and scripted "Jesus of Nazareth" and "Moses the Lawgiver" for the screen. He even invented a prehistoric language for the film "Quest for Fire." Burgess was a truly multitalented artist, whose work continues to be celebrated and studied worldwide.