Anthony Burgess, born as John Anthony Burgess Wilson on 25 February 1917, was an English writer and composer. Although Burgess was primarily known as a comic writer, his dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange remains his best-known novel. In 1971, it was adapted into a controversial film by Stanley Kubrick, which Burgess said was chiefly responsible for the book's popularity.

Burgess produced numerous other novels, including the Enderby quartet and Earthly Powers. He wrote librettos and screenplays, including the 1977 television mini-series Jesus of Nazareth. He worked as a literary critic for several publications, including The Observer and The Guardian, and wrote studies of classic writers, notably James Joyce. A versatile linguist, Burgess lectured in phonetics and translated works such as Cyrano de Bergerac, Oedipus Rex, and the opera Carmen, among others.

In 1973, he was nominated and shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Besides writing, Burgess composed over 250 musical works and considered himself as much a composer as an author, although his success was more pronounced in writing.