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Ultima actualizacion 17/07/1996
Anthony Burgess
(1917-1993)
There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really
Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip
dark chill winter bastard though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my
brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days and
everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being read much neither. Well, what they sold there
was milk plus something else. They had no license for selling liquor, but there was no law yet
against prodding some of the new veshches which they used to put into the old moloko, so you could
peet it with vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom or one or two other veshches which would give you a
nice quick horrorshow fifteen minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels And Saints in your left
shoe with lights bursting all over your mozg. Or you could peet milk with knives in it, as we used
to say, and this would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, and that
was what we were peeting this evening I'm starting off the story with.
--from A Clockwork Orange
Short bio:
Anthony Burgess
Born 25th February 1917. The author who will always be remembered for his eighth book, The
Clockwork orange, was born Jack Wilson in a small house in Harpurhey, the son of a bookkeeper and
part-time pianist, and the musician/dancer he met at the Ardwick Empire. When he was a baby he was
found lying in his cot with his mother and sister dead beside him, both victims of Spanish flu.
Burgess went to Bishop Bilsborrow Primary School, Moss Side, Xavarian College, and Manchester
University, spent six years as a war-time soldier, and then went into education, eventually becoming
education officer in Malaya and Brunei. Invalided at home in 1959 with a terminal illness, he became a
professional writer in the hope that in his final year he would provide some security for his wife. The
medical diagnosis was wrong, and Burgess stayed with his new carreer, writing more than 30 novels
and other books.
This prolific and often controversial writer once created a storm when he returned to his native city
and said: "As a piece of civic planning, or rather unplanning, I think it's terrible."
Burgess Links
Ultima actualizacion 17/7/96.
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