A Clockwork Orange
About this audiobook
Brought to you by Penguin.
In this 1962 classic, a novelistic exploration of modern crime and punishment, Alex is the 15-year-old leader of his gang of "droogs" thriving in the ultraviolent future as prophetically imagined by Burgess. Speaking a bizarre Russian-derived slang, Alex and his friends freely pillage and slash their way across a nightmarish urban landscape until Alex is captured by the judicial arm of the state. He then becomes their prized guinea pig in a scientific program to completely "redeem" him for society. If we had the power of absolute criminal reform, what, the novel asks, would this mean for our ideals of freedom and society?
This edition reinstates the final chapter missing from Kubrick's film, in which Alex is on the verge of starting a family as he reflects on--and completely rejects--his adolescent nastiness. It also includes Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."
© Anthony Burgess 1962 (P) Penguin Audio 2010
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About the author
Anthony Burgess was born in Manchester in 1917. He served in the army from 1940 to 1954 before becoming a colonial education officer. It was while he held this post that doctors told him he would die, and he decided to try to live by writing.
He achieved a worldwide reputation as one of the leading novelists of his day, and one of the most versitile. His writings include criticism, scripts and translations, and a Broadway musical, and he composed three symphonies which have been publicly performed in the USA. His books have been published all over the world and include A Clockwork Orange, The Clockwork Testament, Inside Mr Enderby, Enderby's Dark Lady, Earthly Powers, Abba Abba and The End of the World News.
Anthony Burgess died in 1993.
