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A Clockwork Orange was written by one of the cleverest authors of all time, Anthony Burgess. Anthony Burgess was born in Manchester, England in 1917 as John Anthony Burgess Wilson. (http://www.anthonyburgess.org/html/brief.htm) He was educated in Manchester and attended Xaverian College and the University of Manchester, graduating with a degree in English Literature in 1940. His sister and mother died when he was young, which had a huge impact on his life and work.
While he was growing up in Manchester, Burgess loved and studied music. He wanted to be a famous composer, which would explain the reasoning behind Alex’s, the main character’s, love for music in A Clockwork Orange. (http://www.geocities.com/malcolmtribute/burgess.html) Alex cherishes Ludwig van Beethoven’s work. He refers to him as “the old Ludwig van.”
Burgess learned many languages such as Malay, Russian, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Welsh in addition to English, and also some Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese, Swedish and Persian. In A Clockwork Orange, Burgess uses a form of language referred to as “Nadsat.” Nadsat is a slang language Burgess used for the novel which mixes Russian, English, Gypsy, Malay, French, and his own invented words. Although the language is difficult to understand at first, it is easy to pick up while reading. (http://www.geocities.com/malcolmtribute/burgess.html)
Burgess wrote that the title referred to an old Cockney expression "as queer as a clockwork orange". Since he served time in the British Colonial Office in Malaya, Burgess thought that the phrase could be used as a pun to refer to a mechanically responsive (clockwork) human (orang, Malay for "person"). (http://ask.yahoo.com/20050608.html)
Burgess lived in Malaya for some time, where his wife was beaten by four American GI's, which gave him inspiration for this novel. He released the anger of his wife’s death into A Clockwork Orange. In Malay, the word, orang, means man....