Anthony Burgess’s two volumes of autobiography, Little Wilson and Big God (1987) and You’ve Had Your Time (1990) contain some of his finest prose, by turns lively, erudite, bawdy, moving, untrustworthy and never uninteresting. We have a recording of Burgess reading the first section of Little Wilson and Big God, perhaps for use as part of a publicity drive on its publication, and his typically confident and measured delivery brings his life to life. Here’s a section where he reflects on the nature of writing, and how it informs his approach to writing about himself:
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