Famous Like Me > Writer > B > Melvin Burgess
Profile of Melvin Burgess
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| Name: |
Melvin Burgess |
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| Also Know As: |
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| Date of Birth: |
25th April 1954 |
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| Place of Birth: |
Twickenham, Middlesex, England, UK |
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| Profession: |
Writer |
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From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
Melvin Burgess (b. April 25, 1954 is a British author. He is famous for writing the book Junk, which is set in 1990s Bristol and deals with the emotive issues of teenagers dealing with running away from home and living on the streets.
Burgess has a knack for writing about characters, rather than plot and Junk was critically acclaimed for the way that the characters' paths were described so beautifully, each of them leading down to a degradation or salvation that the reader could empathise with and understand.
It was written in an odd literary style, in that every chapter was written in first person (I) and each chapter came from a different character's perspective, allowing you inside several heads and showing you the same event from several viewpoints. In doing this, Burgess manages to convey heroin's deadly allure, the reasons for beating a wife, the reasons for stealing, dealing, prostitution, all by allowing the characters themselves to try and justify their actions.
Melvin Burgess has also written a book called Doing It, which tells the tales of a group of teenage friends and their various rocky paths through losing their virginities. Unlike Junk, this book is written in third person (he, she, it), but still shows an uncanny ability to get inside his characters' heads.
Fans of Melvin Burgess would do well to read Arabella Weir.
External Links
- Melvin Burgess at www.contemporarywriters.com
- Melvin Burgess at the Internet Book List
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It uses material from the Wikipedia article Melvin Burgess
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