Entoni Berdzhess

Anthony Burgess (full name — John Anthony Burgess Wilson) was an English writer, literary scholar, composer, translator, and journalist.

He was born on 25 February 1917 in Manchester, into a Catholic family of musicians. Burgess’s father was a cashier and played the piano. Burgess’s mother died of the influenza pandemic when he was 2 years old. He was raised first by an aunt and later by a foster mother.

Burgess was educated at Xaverian College and the University of Manchester, which he graduated from in 1940. There he also began lecturing on the history of the English language and literature. During the Second World War, Burgess served in the army.

In 1942 he married Llewela Isherwood Jones, who died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1968. From 1946 to 1950 Burgess taught at the University of Birmingham, worked at the Ministry of Education, and at Banbury School. Burgess’s debut novel was written in 1949 but not published until 1965. Until 1959 Burgess studied music theory and devoted little time to writing. In 1954 he was an education officer in the Federation of Malaya, and in 1958 in Brunei.

In 1959, after the then teacher Anthony Burgess fainted in class, a brain tumor was discovered, and according to the doctor he had no more than a year to live. This event gave Burgess the impetus to begin writing. Since then he published more than 50 books, including the best-known “The Enderby Tetralogy” and “A Clockwork Orange.” Burgess wrote not only under his own name but also under various pseudonyms suggested by his wife. Once, at the request of the newspaper’s editor, Burgess wrote a review for the Yorkshire Post of his own novel Inside Mr. Enderby — the novel had been written under the pseudonym Joseph Kell, whose connection to Burgess the editor did not know.

The writer’s work was significantly influenced by the works of James Joyce and, to some extent, by his Catholic faith.

His best-known work, “A Clockwork Orange,” which gained popularity chiefly after Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation, addresses such themes as free