 He worked on an anthology of the best of English literature translated into Malay, which failed to achieve publication.Burgess's published translations include two different versions of "Cyrano de Bergerac", "Oedipus the King" and "Carmen".Burgess's interest in language was reflected in the invented, Anglo-Russian teen slang of "A Clockwork Orange" (Nadsat), and in the movie "Quest for Fire" (1981), for which he invented a prehistoric language ("Ulam") for the characters.