Anthony Burgess, who died in 1993, was a lifelong inhabitant of old Grub Street, the place that has become a ghost town. He was a prolific, inveterate and incorrigible book reviewer who feasted on ink and paper. On one celebrated occasion, indeed, he even adopted a pseudonym, the better to review his own fiction.

Literary outrage was a Burgess stock-in-trade, something that brought him here, to these pages. Sacked by the Yorkshire Post for his misdemeanour, Burgess was snapped up by our then literary editor, Terence Kilmartin. The recruit joined a tradition that includes Orwell, Koestler and Kenneth Tynan. Soon, Burgess's book reviews had become a treasured feature of the Review – orotund yet spiky, well-informed and highly readable.

Burgess is better remembered now than ever. His masterpiece, A Clockwork Orange, has just reached its half-century, and his favourite newspaper, the Observer, is proud to associate itself with his memory. Last week, we awarded the first Observer/Anthony Burgess prize for arts journalism. The prize was open to all, and entries could be on any cultural subject under the umbrella of "arts journalism", limited only by a 1,500 word count.

The judges – novelists William Boyd, Scarlett Thomas and Kamila Shamsie, plus Burgess biographer Andrew Biswell – enjoyed a menu gastronomique of arts journalism from around the English-speaking world. The nearly 200 entries ranged from pieces about Stephen Sondheim to feisty demolitions of EL James, and came from the US, eastern Europe, Australia and even Malaysia, where Burgess began his writing career. Our criteria? Boyd, a Burgess aficionado and friend, came up with some essential navigation. "My touchstone," he declared once the shortlist was settled, "was that I was looking for some Burgessian fizz and crackle and a bit of well-displayed erudition. Therefore the first paragraph or two really had to deliver."

After much enjoyable deliberation, we chose Lancashire musician Shaun Lyon's "An Unlikely Arena: New Music at the Last Night of the Proms", which we found to be vivid, witty and articulate. Shamsie praised "an intelligent and lively piece of writing, which is well informed about its subject. The author shows the push, pull and bite of the best cultural journalism."

Lyon said that his first encounter with Burgess was through reading A Clockwork Orange in his 20s. "I discovered his superbly entertaining journalism from Homage to Qwertyuiop. I inevitably began to learn more about the man himself. Burgess's life struck a huge chord of recognition. Like him, I grew up in a working-class background in Lancashire, and ended up studying music. I have endeavoured to write both music and words. Burgess, I discovered, began as an aspiring composer and gradually became a writer who also composed.The sheer genius and indefatigable energy of his output remains a source of huge personal inspiration."

The runner-up was James Cahill, for his interview with the portrait painter Justin Mortimer, "From Harold Pinter to the Unnameable".

The second Observer/Burgess prize has been launched. Jonathan Meades will chair the judging, and the closing date for entries is 15 October 2013. Details can be found at anthonyburgess.org