Burgess Events for April 2024
Find out what's happening at the Burgess Foundation and beyond in April 2024.
Highlight Event
Unboxing Anthony Burgess | 23 April 2024, 1pm, Free
Explore the life and work of Anthony Burgess in this special gathering at the author’s archive in Manchester. Burgess was a prolific novelist, composer, journalist and playwright. He grew up above a pub in Manchester, then travelled the world as a solider and teacher before publishing his first novel at the age of 39. He was a larger-than-life character, his reputation boosted by regular TV appearances and reactions to his famous novel, A Clockwork Orange.
The archive at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation tells the story of a writer who never stopped working, despite illness and controversy. As he writes in his autobiography, Little Wilson and Big God: ‘Wedged as we are between two eternities of idleness, there is no excuse for being idle now.’
The Foundation holds manuscripts, photographs, typewriters, vinyl records, notebooks, wine bottles, pianos, a clay bust of his head, and a seemingly endless collection of literary and artistic paraphernalia. Come and be surprised.
We are offering two ‘Unboxing Anthony Burgess’ events in the current series. Each event is themed according to its date.
📦 Tuesday 23 April 2024 is the birthday of Burgess’s literary hero, Shakespeare.
📦 Saturday 22 June 2024 falls in the same week as Bloomsday, a day celebrating the works of his other artistic hero, James Joyce.
Both events start at 1:00 pm. Tickets are free, but numbers for each event are limited, to allow close-up access to the artefacts. Therefore booking is essential.
Events at the Burgess Foundation
Concert: Cucusonic at PeopleFest | 5 April 2024, 11am, 2pm, and 7pm, free | An immersive sound journey into biodiversity and climate change in Colombia (more information).
Literature: The Exorcism of Susan Fox | 6 April 2024, 7pm, £10 | Susan Fox reads from her spellbinding book, The Exorcism of Susan Fox, featuring special guests (more information).
Talk: Speak Up! at PeopleFest | 7 April 2024, 10:30am, free | Discover how residents and housing campaigners in Manchester and London are getting their voices heard through theatre and participatory research (more information).
Talk: Art and Anti-Racism at PeopleFest | 7 April 2024, 1pm, free | Discover what artists in Latin America have been doing to challenge racism in their countries. Participate in hands-on activities in which you can think about and share ideas about how art can work in anti-racist ways (more information).
Talk: Jeremy Deller in Conversation at PeopleFest | 7 April 2024, 3:30pm, free | Artist Jeremy Deller explores some of his public collaborations and the films which they have generated (more information).
The Burgess Foundation Online
For those who can’t make it to Manchester, we have plenty of other cultural activities, accessible in the virtual space.
The Devil Prefers Mozart: On Music and Musicians is available now in the UK and the United States. Carcanet are offering a 25% discount at their web store. Use the code IABFDPM25 at the checkout (offer ends 15 April 2024).
In our latest episode of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation Podcast, you can find out more about The Devil Prefers Mozart from its editor, Paul Phillips:
The Ninety-Nine Novels Podcast | The podcast celebrating Anthony Burgess’s favourite novels of the twentieth century is now in its third series, with episodes on writers such as Evelyn Waugh, Alasdair Gray, Christopher Isherwood and Ralph Ellison. Available wherever you prefer to get podcasts (more information).