The International Anthony Burgess Foundation Podcast

In 1984, Anthony Burgess published Ninety-Nine Novels, a selection of his favourite novels in English since 1939. The list is typically idiosyncratic, and shows the breadth of Burgess's interest in fiction. This podcast, by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, explores the novels on Burgess's list with the help of writers, critics and other special guests.In this episode, Graham Foster discovers Nadine Gordimer’s 1966 novel The Late Bourgeois World, with guest Jeanne-Marie Jackson.The Late Bourgeois World tells the story of Johannesburg suburbanite Liz Van Den Sandt, who finds out her ex-husband has committed suicide after betraying his comrades in the burgeoning rebellion against apartheid. Though she lives a privileged life with her new partner, she begins to feel drawn towards political action. When she is asked to help the Black Nationalist movement with their finances, she has to choose between her own safe but boring life and the exciting but risky act of rebellion. But does her ex-husband’s failure prove the futility of political action?Nadine Gordimer was born in the Transvaal region of South Africa in 1923. She moved to Johannesburg in 1948 and lived in the city for the rest of her life. She published her first novel, The Lying Days, in 1953 and went on to publish 14 more novels and over 20 books of short stories. Gordimer won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. She died in 2014.Jeanne-Marie Jackson is Professor of English at Johns Hopkins University. Her research focusses on African literature and intellectual history. Her first book, South African Literature’s Russian Soul: Narrative Forms of Global Isolation was published by Bloomsbury in 2015. Her most recent book, The African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing was published by Princeton University Press in 2021. She has written for the New York Times, New Left Review, and The Conversation, among others. Her latest book, as editor, is a critical edition of J.E. Casely Hayford’s Ethiopia Unbound.-----BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODEBy Nadine Gordimer:The Lying Days (1953)Burger's Daughter (1979)July's People (1981)'Living in the Interregnum' in The Essential Gesture: Writing, Politics and Places (1988)By others:Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (1862)The Stranger by Albert Camus (1942)The Ripley Series by Patricia Highsmith (1955-91)The Necessity of Art by Ernst Fischer (1959)Muriel at Metropolitan by Miriam Tlali (1975)Edith's Diary by Patricia Highsmith (1977)Amandla by Miriam Tlali (1980)Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee (1999)The Theory of Flight by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu (2018)The History of Man by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu (2019)The Quality of Mercy by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu (2022)-----LINKSSouth African Literature’s Russian Soul: Narrative Forms of Global Isolation by Jeanne-Marie JacksonThe African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing by Jeanne-Marie JacksonInternational Anthony Burgess FoundationThe Burgess Foundation's free Substack newsletter

In 1984, Anthony Burgess published Ninety-Nine Novels, a selection of his favourite novels in English since 1939. The list is typically idiosyncratic, and shows the breadth of Burgess's interest in fiction. This podcast, by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, explores the novels on Burgess's list with the help of writers, critics and other special guests.In this episode, Andrew Biswell talks to Brian Boyd about Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Pale Fire, which Anthony Burgess called ‘a brilliant confection’.Pale Fire is unlike any other novel. The first section of the novel takes the form of a 999-line poem, by a murdered poet called John Shade. The second section concerns the discursive commentary and notes by Shade’s supposed editor, Charles Kinbote. Seemingly unconnected to the poem, Kinbote’s notes describe his belief that he is Charles the Beloved, the exiled king of a country called Zembla. Can this be true, or is Kinbote a fantasist? Does Shade’s poem really reference the revolution in Zembla? Is Shade even real? These are just some of the questions raised by this rich and puzzling novel.Vladimir Nabokov was born in St Petersburg in 1899, and being of aristocratic heritage, was exiled from Russia when the Bolsheviks seized power. Having studied in Britain, he settled in America in 1940, lecturing in Russian literature at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and Cornell University in New York State. His novel Lolita, published in 1955, brought him fame, and was filmed by Stanley Kubrick, from Nabokov’s own screenplay, in 1962. Nabokov died in Switzerland in 1977.Brian Boyd is University Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Auckland, New Zealand and one of the leading experts in Nabokov’s work. His writings about Nabokov include Nabokov’s Ada: The Place of Consciousness, Nabokov’s Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery, and two volumes of biography subtitled The Russian Years and The American Years. He is currently working on a biography of the philosopher Karl Popper, along with a follow-up to his On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction; a book on Shakespeare’s plays; two books on Lolita; and a continuation of his annotations, a chapter at a time, to Ada, already almost 2500 pages, with about 500 to go. He is also co-editing Nabokov’s Lectures on Russian Poetry, Prose, and Drama.-----BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODEBy Vladimir Nabokov:The Defense (1930)Lolita (1955)Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969)Transparent Things (1972)'The Vane Sisters' in The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov (1995)By others:Gradus ad Parnassum by Johann Joseph Fux (1725)Ulysses by James Joyce (1922)The Joy of Gay Sex by Edmund White (1977)A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk (2015)-----LINKSNabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery by Brian Boyd (affiliate link)International Anthony Burgess FoundationInternational Anthony Burgess Foundation NewsletterThe theme music for the Ninety-Nine Novels podcast is Anthony Burgess’s Concerto for Flute, Strings and Piano in D Minor, performed by No Dice Collective. 

In this episode, Andrew Biswell explores Anthony Burgess’s new collection of essays on music, The Devil Prefers Mozart, with editor Paul Phillips.The Devil Prefers Mozart is the first collection of Anthony Burgess’s essays on music and musicians. This wide-ranging anthology covers classical, modern and operatic works, as well as jazz, pop, heavy metal and punk. This episode of the podcast discusses the versatility of Burgess’s writing on music, the different sorts of essays in the new collection and what Burgess really thought of the work of the Beatles.Paul Phillips is the Gretchen B. Kimball Director of Orchestral Studies and Associate Professor of Music at Stanford University, and author A Clockwork Counterpoint: The Music and Literature of Anthony Burgess, the definitive study of Burgess’s music and its relationship to his writing. Paul has contributed essays to six books on Burgess, including the Norton Critical Edition of A Clockwork Orange, and is an Honorary Patron of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation and its Music Advisor.-----LINKSThe Devil Prefers Mozart: On Music and Musicians by Anthony Burgess, edited by Paul Phillips at CarcanetThe Clockwork Counterpoint: The Music and Literature of Anthony Burgess by Paul Phillips (affiliate link)International Anthony Burgess FoundationAnthony Burgess News, our free weekly Substack newsletter.

In this episode, Andrew Biswell talks to writer and publisher Richard Cohen about his memories of working with Anthony Burgess in the 1980s.Richard Cohen is the former publishing director of Hutchinson, and was instrumental in publishing some of Burgess’s best known novels of the 1980s, beginning with The Pianoplayers in 1986. After working at Hutchinson, Richard moved to Hodder, and eventually set up his own company Richard Cohen Books. During his time in publishing he worked with authors as varied as Jeffrey Archer, John Le Carre, Kingsley Amis, Fay Wheldon. Sebastian Faulks, and Rudy Giuliani.As a writer, Richard has published four books of non-fiction: By the Sword, a history of swordplay; Chasing the Sun, an epic history of the Sun; How to Write Like Tolstoy, a guide for writers; and Making History, a history of historians from Herodotus to the present day.Richard was also an Olympic fencer, competing in Munich, Montreal and Los Angeles between 1972 and 1984. He won both a gold and bronze medal for fencing at the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh.-----LINKSMaking History: Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past by Richard Cohen (affiliate link)By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions by Richard Cohen (affiliate link)Chasing the Sun: The Epic Story of the Star that Gives Us Life by Richard Cohen (affiliate link)How to Write Like Tolstoy by Richard Cohen (affiliate link)International Anthony Burgess FoundationSubscribe to the Burgess Foundation's free newsletter for weekly news, event listings and writing by and about Anthony Burgess.

In this episode, Andrew Biswell exploring the making of the new documentary film, A Clockwork Orange: The Prophecy, with the directors Elisa Mantin and Benoit Felici.A Clockwork Orange: The Prophecy, is the first new documentary to focus on Burgess for 25 years. Drawing on archive footage, startling new animations, and interviews with major cultural figures such as Will Self and Ai Weiwei, this documentary reconsiders the 60-year history of A Clockwork Orange as a novel, film, stage play and cultural influence.LINKS:To watch the French version, Orange méchanique: les rouages de la violence, click here.To watch the German version, Clockwork Orange: Im Räderwerk der Gewalt, click here.International Anthony Burgess FoundationSign up to our free newsletter

In this episode, we hand the microphone over to Anthony Burgess himself, as he gives a special festive reading of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of our listeners! We'll be back in 2024 with more podcasts.For more information about Anthony Burgess and to find out how you can support the work of the Burgess Foundation, visit our website.

In this episode, we’re exploring a parallel universe Glasgow as we talk about Alasdair Gray’s Lanark with writer and biographer Rodge Glass.Lanark is a strange, experimental book that immediately thrusts the reader into a weird world with glimmers of familiarity. It’s a novel with two stories, that weave around each other but don’t quite come together in an obvious way. It begins with the story of a man called Lanark, whose lonely existence in the city of Unthank is eventually disturbed when his skin begins to grow dragon scales. This story is interrupted by that of Duncan Thaw, who remembers his journey to become an artist, studying at the Glasgow School of Art and struggling to get by painting murals around the city. What, if anything, is the connection between Thaw and Lanark?Alasdair Gray was born in Riddrie, Glasgow in 1934. He began studying at the Glasgow School of Art in 1953, where he started writing Lanark. He graduated in 1957 and painted murals around Glasgow. Many of his murals have been lost, but some  can still be seen around the city. Most famously, his mural at the Òran Mór theatre is the largest public artwork in Scotland. Alongside his career as an artist he wrote nine novels, five collections of short stories, and several works for the theatre. He died in 2019.Rodge Glass is the author of seven published books across fiction, the graphic novel, the short story and nonfiction, including Alasdair Gray: A Secretary's Biography, which won a Somerset Maugham Award for Nonfiction, and his new book Michel Faber: The Writer & his Work, published by Liverpool University Press in August 2023. He is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and was the Convener of the 2nd International Alasdair Gray Conference hosted in Glasgow in 2022. He works closely with the Alasdair Gray Archive on creative commissions, academic work and on building Gray's legacy internationally.-----BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODEBy Alasdair Gray:'The Star' in Unlikely Stories, Mostly (1983)1982, Janine (1984)The Fall of Kelvin Walker (1985)Poor Things (1992)A Life in Pictures (2009)By others:Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1651)'The Crystal Egg' in The Country of the Blind and Other Selected Stories by HG Wells (1897)Finnegans Wake by James Joyce (1939)Alasdair Gray: A Secretary's Biography by Rodge Glass (2009)-----LINKSAlasdair Gray: A Secretary's Biography by Rodge Glass (affiliate link)Michel Faber: The Writer & His Work by Rodge Glass (affiliate link)The Alasdair Gray ArchiveInternational Anthony Burgess FoundationThe theme music for the Ninety-Nine Novels podcast is Anthony Burgess’s Concerto for Flute, Strings and Piano in D Minor, performed by No Dice Collective.-----If you’ve enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe and review wherever you get your podcasts.

In 1984, Anthony Burgess published Ninety-Nine Novels, a selection of his favourite novels in English since 1939. The list is typically idiosyncratic, and shows the breadth of Burgess's interest in fiction. This podcast, by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, explores the novels on Burgess's list with the help of writers, critics and other special guests.In this episode, Graham Foster explores pre-civil rights America in Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel Invisible Man, with writer and academic Sterling L. Bland Jr.Invisible Man follows a nameless black narrator, from his early life as a student of an all-black college based on the Tuskegee Institute, through his expulsion and move to New York where he takes up a series of low status jobs before he falls in with a radical political group called The Brotherhood and takes part in a race riot in Harlem. The novel is part bildungsroman, part satire, and full of literary allusion, allegory and rich imagery. It’s also an impassioned commentary on the black experience in an America marked by segregation, inequality and racism.Ralph Ellison was born in Oklahoma in 1914. He discovered the power of literature at the Tuskegee Institute, even though he left before graduating. In 1936, he moved to New York, meeting writers Langston Hughes and Richard Wright. Invisible Man was the only novel published in his lifetime, though he also published two volumes of essays. Since his death in 1994, his second, unfinished, novel was published in 1999 under the title Juneteenth. A longer version of this novel was published in 2010 under the title Three Days Before the Shooting… There have also been two further volumes of essays, a collection of short stories, and two selections of his letters.Sterling Lecater Bland, Jr. is a professor in the departments of English, Africana Studies, and American Studies at Rutgers University-Newark. He is the author of Voices of the Fugitives: Runaway Slave Stories and Their Fictions of Self-Creation and Understanding Nineteenth Century Slave Narratives. He has written extensively about Ralph Ellison and contributed essays to books such as Approaches to Teaching the Works of Ralph Ellison, and Ralph Ellison in Context. His most recent book is In the Shadow of Invisibility: Ralph Ellison and the Promise of American Democracy.-----BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODEBy Ralph Ellison:Shadow and Act: Essays (1964)Going to the Territory: Essays (1986)Juneteenth (1999), also published in a longer form as Three Days Before the Shooting... (2010)By others:The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884)Light in August by William Faulkner (1932)Native Son by Richard Wright (1940)The Mansion by William Faulkner (1959)The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (1970)Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (1977)The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead (1999)-----LINKSIn the Shadow of Invisibility: Ralph Ellison and the Promise of American Democracy by Sterling L. Bland Jr. (affiliate link)Ralph Ellison FoundationInternational Anthony Burgess FoundationThe theme music is Anthony Burgess’s Concerto for Flute, Strings and Piano in D Minor, and is performed by No Dice Collective.