Completed shortly before Burgess's death, this novel in verse is extravagantly original
Anthony Burgess was born in Manchester in 1917 and educated at
Xaverian College and Manchester University. He served in the
British army from 1940 to 1946 and was a schoolteacher in England
before becoming a colonial education officer in 1954. His Malayan
trilogy of novels and a history of English literature were
published while he was living in Malaya and Brunei.
He became a full-time writer in 1959 and achieved a worldwide
reputation as one of the most versatile novelists of his day. His
writings include biographies of Shakespeare and Hemingway, critical
studies of James Joyce, stage plays, and two volumes of
autobiography. His work as a composer and librettist includes the
Broadway musical, Cyrano, and Blooms of Dublin, an operetta based
on Joyce's Ulysses.
His 33 novels continue to be published all over the world. They
include A Clockwork Orange, Nothing Like the Sun, The Complete
Enderby, Earthly Powers, Napoleon Symphony, and Beard's Roman
Women, a collaboration with the photographer David Robinson.
Anthony Burgess died in London in 1993.
A rumbustious memorial to one of the most unignorable literary
presences of our time
*Sunday Times*
Dazzling... A brilliant and surprising conclusion to the career of
one of the most intelligent and tireless writers of the century
*Mail on Sunday*
A fine book
*Independent*
Byrne is full of his characteristic wit, gusto and erudition
*Observer*
A complex dark comedy in fluently rhymed verse. Frequently
hilarious and always engaging, this final book simultaneously
satisfies the differing demands of prose fiction and narrative
verse. Composed mostly in the same ottava rima that Byron used for
"Don Juan," Byrne shows Burgess in command of his poetic medium.
One might expect an author to experience new spiritual insight on
his deathbed, but such a technical breakthrough is highly
unusual
*New York Times*
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