You are invited to the launch of Anthony Burgess and Modernism, a new exhibition exploring Burgess’s relationship to twentieth century art.

Throughout his life, Burgess took inspiration from modernism in his creative work. His reading as a young man included James Joyce, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf; and he listened to Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Hindemith on a crystal radio set in his bedroom. Watching Fritz Lang’s influential modernist film Metropolis in 1927 had a significant impact on the young Burgess.

His writings were heavily influenced by modernism, most notably in the mythic framework of the linguistically fragmented Napoleon Symphony, while Earthly Powers is set in a modernist world exploding into postmodern culture.

The exhibition features Anthony Burgess’s never-before-published proposal document for a history of modernism he titled ‘Modernism and Modern Man’, taking in brief musings on literature, jazz, psychoanalysis and the Impressionists.

Join us for drinks and informal discussions from 6pm – book your free ticket here.  We will also be celebrating the launch of Anthony Burgess’s newly reissued biographies of D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce, Flame Into Being: the Life of D.H. Lawrence and Here Comes Everybody: An Introduction to James Joyce for the Ordinary Reader. The Observer said of the latter: “Mr Burgess has written a brilliant and humane study of the most brilliant and humane of twentieth century novelists.”