• Menu

    What’s it going to be then, eh?

    The International Anthony Burgess Foundation
    About Anthony Burgess
    • Introducing Anthony Burgess
    • The Books of Anthony Burgess
    • The Music of Anthony Burgess
    Discover More
    • A Clockwork Orange
    • Earthly Powers
    • Anthony Burgess and Shakespeare
    • Dystopian Fiction
    About The Foundation
    • Our Mission
    • Visiting Us
    • The Burgess Bar
    • Support the Burgess Foundation
    • Join our mailing list
    • Contact us
    Anthony Burgess Archive
    • About the Archive
    • Visiting the Archive
    • Object of the Week
    • Contact the Archivist
    What's On
    • News and Blogs
    • Event listings
    • Venue hire
    • Burgess Prize
    • Exhibitions
    • Podcasts
    The International Anthony Burgess Foundation
  • What’s it going to be then, eh?

    OPENING TIMES
    Bar Open for events
    Reading Room Available for pre-booked appointments 10.00am - 3.00pm weekdays
    Office Hours By appointment: info@anthonyburgess.org
    HOW TO FIND US
    Engine House
    Chorlton Mill
    3 Cambridge Street
    Manchester
    M1 5BY
    Nearest train station Oxford Road More information
    Next event
    Hong Kong Film Festival UK: Taste Of Wild Tomato 野蕃茄 Wed 29 Mar 2023 7:00 pm £8.00 More information
  • The International Anthony Burgess Foundation
  • What's it going to be then, eh?

    Exhibitions. New writing. Concert commissions. Academic research. Public events, in venues and online. And at the core of everything, preserving and promoting our extensive Anthony Burgess archive.

    Your donation to the Burgess Foundation supports our mission to promote the life and work of Anthony Burgess in so many ways.

  • What’s it going to be then, eh?

The International Anthony Burgess Foundation The International Anthony Burgess Foundation
NEWS AND BLOG POSTS

Observer/Burgess Prize: Burgess on Biography

  • Graham Foster

  • 22nd November 2016
  • category

  • Blog Posts
  • tagged as

  • Journalism
  • Observer/Burgess Prize

This piece, originally written for Punch in 1985, sees Burgess responding to the announcement that he was to be the subject of a biography. The biography in question, Anthony Burgess by Roger Lewis, was eventually published in 2002, but it was not the first book to be written about Burgess and his work. The first book about Burgess appeared in 1971. Anthony Burgess by Carol Dix is a short critical book, originally written in association with the British Council. The following year AA DeVitis published a slightly more in depth study of Burgess’s work. In 1979, Geoffrey Aggeler published Anthony Burgess: The Artist as Novelist, a monograph that highlights the importance of Burgess’s fiction. Burgess corresponded with Aggeler over a number of years, eventually becoming friends with him. Aggeler later edited a collection of critical essays about Burgess in 1986. Another biography of Burgess appeared in 2005: The Real Life of Anthony Burgess by Andrew Biswell.

Writing about Burgess has never been an easy task, the truth of his life buried under tall tales and fictionalised biographies. His own autobiographies, Little Wilson and Big God (1987) and You’ve Had Your Time (1990), are vibrant and funny, though the truth of Burgess’s life remains contested.

 

 

For more information on the Observer/Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism, click here. 

  • Share | 
  • Print
Related Blog posts
A Shorter Finnegans Wake: editing an epic Andrew Biswell
Inside the archive: Restoring Joyce and Belli Anna Edwards
Blowing the horn for Anthony Burgess in 2023 Andrew Biswell
The 2023 Observer / Burgess Prize has a winner Ian Carrington
SEE ALL NEWS AND BLOG POSTS
Go to home page
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Go to home page
Follow us

© 2023 International Anthony Burgess Foundation

Charity no. 1102623

International Anthony Burgess Foundation
Engine House Chorlton Mill 3 Cambridge Street M1 5BY
  • Site map
  • Privacy policy
  • Terms of use
  • Designed by Instruct
  • Built by OH Digital