What Antony Burgess is most famous for is his work A Clockwork Orange. Nevertheless, several of his other works have also gained him popularity among readership worldwide. As one of his other famous novels, One Hand Clapping, was in vogue with the communist ideology at that time, the unnecessary passages had to be cut, while the fitting to be emphasized by the translator who at the time was working for the Japanese Translator. Burgess’s ideologically correct work had to be improved through hours of laborious and strenuous work spent by the translator whose name was Kenji Ozaki.

Burgess wrote One Hand Clapping within a month and published it in 1961 under the pseudonym of Joseph Kell. The novel gained instant success throughout the whole of Europe. After his return from Malaya and Brunei he noticed the turbulent changes in the British society which is mirrored in his novel. The new and seemingly alien world of television was what occupied the minds of the young in Britain after the author returned there. His first wife, Lynne enjoyed watching particular programs and they to a large extent inspired him in composing the plot. Janet Shirley is the protagonist of the story. She is a French Translatorworker and is interested in material possessions, which finds expression in her making lengthy lists of objects that she and her husband either lack or own. The only two things she is interested in her life are the luxury and the wealth she wants to possess. One day, her husband, Howard, wins one thousand pounds in a TV Quiz Show after which he doubles the prize on gambling. Unfortunately, the money simply worsens the problem as it brings them only unfaithfulness, insanity, laziness, thoughts of suicide and eventually a murder – not the happiness they have dreamt of.

The novel can be interpreted as expressing contemptuous attitude to the materialistic lifestyle and the accumulation of goods. In it the world is shown as attempting to appeal to the lowest tastes in all spheres of life, no matter whether music, literature, theatre, painting. The translation cuts out the last clause of the talk between a worker and Howard which contains the words communist and fascist. Howard, however, is presented as the wiser one in the Portuguese Translator version, as he considers democracy leading the world to degradation and does not accept it.

As the borderline between good and evil is never visible in A Clockwork Orange, is quite clear that Burgess was an advocate of free will. In One Hand Clapping Burgess shows that democracy is deliberately crooked, as the reader is not made to contemplate over whether the communist methods of imposing opinions are acceptable. Redvers Glass, a promising young German Translation Services poet, is at a certain point hired by Howard to compose an article on the decay and rottenness of today’s England, which means that due to its being influenced by the United States, England is deteriorating. Such conclusions are very natural, as the U.S. is strongly criticized in the novel.

A book like this was bound to failure in a Communist country, but it was widely read in Eastern Europe. The novel was a renunciation of the whole capitalist Western life, its desecrated culture and money-making in general, which is why it appeared in the Middle East much later. It became very popular throughout the United Arab Emirates, as it was turned into a musical in Abu Dhabi and adapted for television in Dubai with the help of the Arabic Translation Services.

The Wanting Seed was conceived in 1961 and was first published in 1962 by Antony Burgess, who at the time had become interested in developing a vision of the possible effects of a demographic disaster after spending several years in the East. The book was translated into German in 1988 by Steffen Bretzel on an assignment by the German Translation service. It was particularly evident that the novel would not become a bestseller and for this reason Burgess realized it was not his best work. The critics accused the novel of being half-baked and he agreed with them pointing out that the novel required a longer thinking, but reworking it would do no good, though it could be expanded to a length that would fit the subject. The world is divided into three superpowers according to the plot of the novel and ENSPUN is one of them. The other two are RUSPUN and CHINSPUN, and the three of them exhibit various means of demographic control. Tristram Foxe, who is a history teacher, is the protagonist of the story and he lectures his students that the never-ending historical cycle consists of three phases: Pelphase, Interphase and Gusphase. The world is strictly material, priests perform their duties underground, homosexual relationships are encouraged, conceiving a child is disgraceful, and the problem of overpopulation can only be solved through cannibalism.

The French Translation version cannot be termed as a truthful representation of the future but merely as a fantasy. Daphnie Alesi believed Burgess was a prophet when she did the French translation. Burgess was supposed to be represented as a futuristic writer when she chose to render The Wanting Seed. The fact that the novel has not been reissued either in the U.S. or the U.K. has brought a cult fame to The Wanting Seed over the years probably because in very few bookstores copies of the original can be found. Being an alternative to the existing pulp fiction literature, the novel definitely points out to the underground nature of Burgess as a writer. Not surprisingly, only the members of the exclusive club of Burgess followers, who are ardent readers, can discover his works.

Burgess was depicted as a “fantastic” writer by another translator, who managed the Arabic Translation project was Mohammad Karim. It is surprising that the covers of two novels: A Clockwork Orange and The Wanting Seed represent one and the same face on them. The only person that this can be is Alex, whose mouth is screaming, his mouth is wide open and he has got a cap on his head. When the “helmet” is taken off, what remains is a mouth distorted in a grotesque smile and eyes filled with horror. So, the two novels are inevitably connected in a strong bond. Not only are they connected by the author and translator but also the image implied by the front covers creates a connection on a subconscious level. The Wanting Seed and A Clockwork Orange represent a world that is equally fascinating to the readers – this is the main idea carried across the two novels. It is also implied that the two books complement each other and as they represent the same ideas – something that may or may not be true.