I am the Professor of Modern Literature at MMU.
I have taught English and Creative Writing at the university since 2003.
My academic work includes book publications for academic and commercial publishers, exhibitions, broadcasting for television and radio, articles for newspapers and literary journals, and electronic publication of research materials.
I am the editor of A Clockwork Orange: The Restored Text. The electronic edition is published by Random House Digital. The print edition is published by William Heinemann (UK hardback), W.W. Norton (US hardback) and Penguin Classics (UK and Commonwealth paperback).
Current projects include a scholarly edition of the works of Anthony Burgess for Manchester University Press, and a monograph about British writers of the 1930s.
My teaching at MMU is led by my enthusiasms as a reader and researcher. Most of my teaching is in the areas of creative writing and modern/contemporary literature in English, with particular reference to fiction and poetry.
BA, MA, PGCE (Leicester), Ph.D (Warwick)
Having taught at the Universities of Warwick, Aberdeen and Trondheim, I have worked in the English Department and Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University since 2003.
Professor of Modern Literature. Currently on part-time secondment to the International Anthony Burgess Foundation.
I have taught on the MA and MFA Creative Writing programmes, both on campus and online, since 2003. I was the programme leader and academic director of the Manchester Writing School from 2006 until 2010.
I am interested in supervising PhD students with research interests in creative non-fiction; modern and contemporary fiction; utopia and dystopia; travel writing; literary biography; literary journalism; W.H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Anthony Burgess, Graham Greene; or any aspect of British writing and culture in the 1930s.
Postgraduate theses examined at University of East Anglia, Glasgow University, Cambridge University and University of York.
Principal areas of research include utopias and dystopias; twentieth-century world writing in English; creative writing (fiction, poetry, life-writing); contemporary novels, literary journalism, and literary biography; British writers of the 1930s, especially W.H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood and Graham Greene.
Since 1995 I have been researching the life and work of Anthony Burgess. Publications include a biography, The Real Life of Anthony Burgess, and a critical edition of A Clockwork Orange published by William Heinemann and Penguin (paperback) and by W.W. Norton in New York. With my colleague Paul Wake, I am responsible for the Irwell Edition of the Works of Anthony Burgess, published by Manchester University Press (2017 to present). I prepared the introduction and annotations for Burgess's first novel, A Vision of Battlements, for the Irwell Edition. Other recent publications are Obscenity and the Arts (Pariah Press), No End to Enderby (LUX), and new essays on Anthony Burgess and Stanley Kubrick and Burgess as literary biographer.
I am willing to supervise doctoral work in any of these areas.
A. Griboyedov, J-BP. Moliere, A. Biswell (2023). Chatsky and Miser, Miser! Two Plays by Anthony Burgess. A. Biswell. London: Salamander Street.
(2023). Anthony Burgess, Stanley Kubrick and A Clockwork Orange. M. Melia, G. Orgill. Springer International Publishing.
A. Biswell, A. Burgess, V. Gato (2020). A Laranja Mecânica. Alfaguara.
A. Burgess, A. Biswell (2020). La Naranxa Mecanica. A. Biswell. Trabe.
A. Burgess (2018). Obscenity & The Arts - Anthony Burgess. Pariah Press.
. BISWELL (2017). A Vision of Battlements.
A. Burgess (2016). Mechanický pomeranč.
A. Burgess (2014). A laranja mecânica. ALFAGUARA.
A. Burgess, A. Biswell (2013). A Clockwork Orange. Critical Edition. Penguin Classics.
A. Burgess, A. Biswell (2013). 1985. Profile Books.
A. Burgess, A. Biswell (2013). One Hand Clapping. Profile Books.
A. Burgess (2013). Tremor of Intent. Serpent's Tail.
A. Burgess (2013). Clockwork Orange : [Roman] ; die Urfassung.
A. Burgess (2012). A Clockwork Orange (Restored Text). W. W. Norton.
A. Burgess (2012). A Clockwork Orange. A. Biswell.
ABCI. Symposium, A. Biswell (2006). Anthony Burgess Autobiographer. Presses de l'Université d'Angers.
A. Biswell (2006). The Real Life of Anthony Burgess. Pan Macmillan.
AM. Biswell (2005). The real life of Anthony Burgess. London: Picador.
A. Biswell (2023). Anthony Burgess as Literary Biographer. The AnaChronisT. 20, pp.10-25.
A. GARCIA DOS SANTOS NETO INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW BISWELL. REVISTA ESCRITA. 2014(18),
A. Biswell (2018). Reading Peter Scupham. PN Review. 44(6 [242]), pp.61-62.
A. Biswell (2016). From the Burgess Archive: 06: James Joyce Playing-Cards. PN Review. 42(6 [230]), pp.inside back cover-inside back cover.
A. Biswell (2016). From the Burgess Archive: 05: A Shakespeare Song. PN Review. 42(5 [229]), pp.inside back cover-inside back cover.
A. Biswell (2016). From the Burgess Archive: 04: An Olivetti Typewriter. PN Review. 42(4 [228]), pp.inside back cover-inside back cover.
A. Biswell (2016). From the Burgess Archive: 03: A Sculpture by Milton Hebald. PN Review. 42(3 [227]), pp.inside back cover-inside back cover.
A. Biswell (2015). From the Burgess Archive: 02: A Wicked Pack of Cards. PN Review. 42(2 [226]), pp.inside back cover-inside back cover.
A. Biswell (2015). From the Anthony Burgess Archive: (1) A Musical Matchbox. PN Review. 42(1 [225]), pp.inside back cover-inside back cover.
P. Davidson, A. Biswell (2000). D. Share (ed.): Seneca in English (Poets in Translation). Pp. xxx + 254. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1998. Paper, £9.99. ISBN: 0-14-044667-2. The Classical Review. 50(1), pp.300-301.
G. Eatough, S. Sutcliffe, P. Bowers, A. Biswell (2020). Anthony Burgess as Time Traveller. In: No End to Enderby. LUX,
A. Biswell (2019). Writing Imperial Decline in South East Asia. In: The Oxford History of the Novel in English Volume 10: the Novel in South and South East Asia Since 1945. Oxford University Press,
A. Biswell (2019). Writing Imperial Decline in South East Asia. In: The Oxford History of the Novel in English Volume 10: the Novel in South and South East Asia Since 1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.383-397.
A. Biswell (2012). Anthony Burgess, Christopher Marlowe and Tamburlaine. G. Woodroffe. In: Marlowe, Shakespeare, Burgess. Angers: Presses de l’Université d’Angers, pp.95-105.
A. Biswell (2011). 'Composition'. In: A Clockwork Orange Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts Criticism. W W Norton & Company Incorporated,
AM. Biswell (2009). English Anxieties. Cardiff: Photoworks,
A. Biswell (2006). Disgrace, by J. M. Coetzee. In: Booker Prize Novels: 1969-2005. Detroit, MI: Thomson Gale, pp.305-312.
A. Biswell (2006). The Letters of Anthony Burgess. G. Woodroffe. In: Burgess and (Auto)Biography. Angers: Presses de l’Université d’Angers, pp.203-208.
A. Biswell (2006). The Brides of Enderby. G. Woodroffe. In: in Burgess and (Auto)Biography. Angers: Presses de l’Université d’Angers, pp.203-208.
AM. Biswell (2004). Lo concludiamo qua? Nuovo succo da "A Clockwork Orange". Turin: Lindau,
A. Biswell (2003). Editing and Publishing A Clockwork Orange. E. Vernadakis, G. Woodroffe. In: Portraits of the Artist in A Clockwork Orange. Angers, France: PU de Angers, pp.15-26.
A. Biswell (2003). A. L. Kennedy. In: British and Irish Novelists since 1960. Detroit, MI: Thomson Gale, pp.196-204.
A. Biswell (2001). Peter Ackroyd. In: British Novelists since 1960: Fourth Series. Detroit, MI: Thomson Gale, pp.3-14.
A. Biswell (2001). William Boyd. In: British Novelists since 1960: Fourth Series. Detroit, MI: Thomson Gale, pp.31-40.
January 2020: Keynote lecture at the 'Joyce and Others' conference, University of Rome III.
November 2019: Invited lecture at 'The Huxley Family' conference, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest.
November 2017: Keynote lecture at the 'Burgess 100 Budapest' conference, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest.
October 2017: Keynote lecture at the 'Anthony Burgess in Malta' symposium at the University of Malta, Valletta.
March 2016: Invited lecture at 'Working with Archives' conference, John Rylands Library.
October 2015: Lecture on Byron, Keats and Burgess at the Keats-Shelley House, Piazza di Spagna, Rome.
'Anthony Burgess at 100': a public conversation with Jonathan Meades, National Portrait Gallery, London, 2 March 2017.
3-5 July 2017: Co-ordinator of the centenary conference 'Anthony Burgess: Life, Work, Reputation', Manchester.
January 2013: Co-organiser, 'The Day of the Droogs' colloquium, Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester.
June 2012: Organiser of the 'Fifty Years of A Clockwork Orange' international conference in Manchester.
2016: One-month Fellowship at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
2013: Awarded a two-month Christopher Isherwood Foundation Fellowship at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.
Director of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation since 2010.
As a journalist, I have written for the Guardian, Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday, Literary Review, Times Literary Supplement, Times Higher Education Supplement, Boston Globe, New Statesman and Sight and Sound.
TELEVISION AND RADIO
The Essay: Five Kinds of Beethoven, BBC Radio 3, 24 September 2020.
Front Row Late, BBC Two, 20 April 2018.
Saturday Classics, BBC Radio 3, 25 February 2017.
The Manchester Ballads, BBC Radio 4, 19 January 2016.
Can a Computer Write Shakespeare?, BBC Radio 4, 13 October 2014.
Nightwaves, BBC Radio 3, 28 November 2012.
Interviewed on Channel 4 News, 10 November 2012.
On Point with Tom Ashbrook: ‘Fifty Years of A Clockwork Orange’, National Public Radio (US), 1 October 2012.
Open Book, BBC Radio 4, 16 September 2012.
Archive on Four: A Clockwork Archive, BBC Radio 4, 18 August 2012.
The Beauty of Books, Tern TV/BBC 4, 28 February 2011.
Chance Would Be a Fine Thing, adapted for radio by Andrew Biswell and Nick Holmes, BBC Radio 3, 22 October 2010.
The Manchester Writers, BBC Radio 4, 12 August 2010.
Nigel Balchin: The Small Back Room Boy, BBC Radio 4, 24 April 2008.
Front Row, BBC Radio 4, 19 October 2006.
Winner of the 2006 Portico Prize for The Real Life of Anthony Burgess, published by Picador.
Shortlisted for the Glen Dimplex Awards in 2006.
Shortlisted for the FutureBook Prize for Digital Innovation in 2013.