Melvin Burgess
Overview
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
. His first book, The Cry of the Wolf
The Cry of the Wolf
The Cry of the Wolf is the first novel by author Melvin Burgess. It was published in 1990 by Andersen Press Limited and republished by Puffin Books in 1991 and 1995....
, was published in 1990. He gained a certain amount of notoriety in 1996 with the publication of Junk
Junk (novel)
Junk is a 1996 Carnegie Medal and Guardian Award-winning novel by Melvin Burgess. The book is about the experiences of a group of teenagers who fall into heroin addiction and who embrace anarchism on the streets of Bristol, England...
, which was published in the shadow of the film of Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh is a contemporary Scottish novelist, best known for his novel Trainspotting. His work is characterised by raw Scottish dialect, and brutal depiction of the realities of Edinburgh life...
's Trainspotting
Trainspotting (novel)
Trainspotting is the first novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh. It is written in the form of short chapters narrated in the first person by various residents of Leith, Edinburgh, who either use heroin, are friends of the core group of heroin users, or engage in destructive activities that are...
, and dealt with the trendy and controversial idea of heroin-addicted teenagers. Junk soon became, at least in Britain, one of the best-known young adult books of the decade.
Burgess again courted predictable controversy in 2003, with the publication of Doing It
Doing It
Doing It is a 2004 young adult novel by award winning author Melvin Burgess. It tells of the experiences of a group of English teenagers and their discovery of sex for the first time...
, which dealt with underage sex.
