Melvin Burgess

Melvin Burgess (born 25 April 1954) is a British writer of children's fiction. He became famous in 1998 with the publication of Junk, about heroin-addicted teenagers on the streets of Bristol. At least in Britain, Junk became one of the best-known young adult books of the decade. Burgess won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British author. For the 10th anniversary in 2007 it was named one of the top ten Medal-winning works, selected by a panel to compose the ballot for a public election of the all-time favourite.

Biography

Burgess was born in the Municipal Borough of Twickenham, Middlesex, England (now Twickenham in Greater London). He completed his first book accepted for publication in his mid-thirties: a novel, The Cry of the Wolf, published by Andersen Press in 1990. It was highly commended by the librarians for the Carnegie Medal, which Gillian Cross won for Wolf. (Cross featured a girl and a metaphorical wolf. Burgess featured as a character the last grey wolf in Great Britain.)