Devil of a State
Encyclopedia
Anthony Burgess
John Burgess Wilson – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...
based on his experience living and working in Bandar Seri Begawan
Bandar Seri Begawan
Bandar Seri Begawan, with an estimated population 140,000 , is the capital and largest city of the Sultanate of Brunei...
in the Southeast Asian sultanate of Brunei
Brunei
Brunei , officially the State of Brunei Darussalam or the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace , is a sovereign state located on the north coast of the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia...
, on the island of Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
, in 1958-59.
It is the fourth of what have been classed as Burgess's "exotic novels", the others being Time for a Tiger
Time for a Tiger
Time for a Tiger is part one of Anthony Burgess's Malayan Trilogy The Long Day Wanes, "the first panel of a triptych" set in the twilight of British rule of the peninsula....
, The Enemy in the Blanket
The Enemy in the Blanket
The Enemy in the Blanket is the second novel in Anthony Burgess's Malayan Trilogy The Long Day Wanes. The idiom in the title signifies "traitor" while also alluding to the struggles of marriage...
and Beds in the East
Beds in the East
Beds in the East is the third novel in Anthony Burgess's Malayan Trilogy The Long Day Wanes. It was published in 1959.The title is taken from a line spoken by Mark Antony in Antony and Cleopatra, act 2, scene 6: "The beds i' the east are soft; and thanks to you,/That call'd me timelier than my...
.
For libel reasons the action had to be transposed to an imaginary East African caliphate called "Dunia" and a UN representative substituted for the British Adviser. In his autobiography Little Wilson and Big God, Being the First Part of the Confessions of Anthony Burgess
Little Wilson and Big God, Being the First Part of the Confessions of Anthony Burgess
Little Wilson and Big God, volume I of Anthony Burgess's autobiography, was first published by Heinemann in 1986. It won the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography....
(1987) Burgess writes:
- This novel was, is, about Brunei, which was renamed Naraka, Malayo-Arabic for hell. Little invention was needed to contrive a large cast of unbelievable characters and a number of interwoven plots.Though completed in 1958, the work was not published until 1961, for what it was worth it was made a choice of the book society. Heinemann, my publisher, was doubtfull about publishing it: it might be libelous. I had to change the setting from Borneo to an East African one. Heinemann was right to be timorous. In early 1958 'The Enemy in the Blanket' appeared and this at once provoked a libel suit.
Characters and plot
The Italians Nando and Paolo Tasca, father and son, are working on the marble in the grandiose mosque that is under construction (this was in fact the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin MosqueSultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque
Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque is a royal Islamic mosque located in Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of the Sultanate of Brunei. The mosque is one of the most spectacular mosques in the Asia Pacific and a major landmark and tourist attraction of Brunei....
, designed by an Italian architect and built while Burgess was in Brunei).
After a furious argument with his violent father over a purloined pocket watch, Paolo seeks refuge in one of the mosque's minarets. When political oppositionists learn of Paolo's act, they exalt him as a hero in the struggle against colonial oppression and he becomes a household name in enlightened circles around the world. But how will they get him to come down?