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Tags: william s. burroughs (1914-1997)

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  Junky

  by William S. Burroughs

  Before his 1959 breakthrough, Naked Lunch , an unknown William S. Burroughs wrote Junk , his first book, a candid, eyewitness account of times and places that are now long gone. This book brings them vividly to life again; it is an unvarnished field report from the American postwar underground. For this definitive 50th-anniversary edition, eminent Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris has painstakingly re-created the... (more)
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  The Soft Machine

  by William S. Burroughs

  In Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs revealed his genius. In The Soft Machine he begins an adventure that will take us even further into the dark recesses of his imagination, a region where nothing is sacred, nothing taboo. Continuing his ferocious verbal assault on hatred, hype, poverty, war, bureaucracy, and addiction in all its forms, Burroughs gives us a surreal space odyssey through the wounded galaxies in a... (more)
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  Ticket That Exploded

  by William S. Burroughs

  In The Ticket That Exploded, William S. Burroughs’s grand cut-up trilogy, which began with The Soft Machine and continues through Nova Express, reaches its climax as Inspector Lee and the Nova Police engage the Nova Mob in a decisive battle for the planet.
• Dead Fingers TalkWilliam S. Burroughs

  

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  Dead Fingers Talk

  by William S. Burroughs

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  The Letters of William S.Burroughs, 1945-59

  by William S. Burroughs

  This is the first volume of letters from William Burroughs, covering the years 1945-1959. The letters are entertaining and revealing, placing Burroughs' work in the context of an extraordinary life (J.G. Ballard once commented that Burroughs' life was more extreme than his writing) and Burroughs himself in the context of a decade and a half of momentous cultural change. Burroughs' circle at this time were the... (more)
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  Cities of the Red Night

  by William S. Burroughs

  While young men wage war against an evil empire of zealous mutants, the population of this modern inferno is afflicted with the epidemic of a radioactive virus. An opium-infused apocalyptic vision from the legendary author of Naked Lunch is the first of the trilogy with The Places of the Dead Roads and his final novel, The Western Plains .
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  Nova Express

  by William S. Burroughs

  Nova Express takes William S. Burroughs’s nightmarish future one step beyond The Soft Machine. The diabolical Nova criminals have gained control and plan on wreaking untold destruction. It’s up to Inspector Lee of the Nova Police to attack and dismantle the word-and-imagery machine of these “control addicts” before it’s too late.
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  Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

  by William S. Burroughs

  Naked Lunch is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. Exerting its influence on the work of authors like Thomas Pynchon, J. G. Ballard, and William Gibson, on the relationship of art and obscenity, and on the shape of music, film, and media generally, it is one of the books that redefined not just literature but American culture. Reedited by Burroughs scholar Barry Miles and Burroughs's... (more)
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  Exterminator!

  by William S. Burroughs

  A man, dispirited by ageing, endeavours to steal a younger man’s face; a doctor yearns for a virus that might eliminate his discomfort by turning everyone else into doubles of himself; a Colonel lays out the precepts of the life of DE (Do Easy); conspirators posthumously succeed in blowing up a train full of nerve gas; a mandrill known as the Purple Better One runs for the presidency with brutal results; and the... (more)
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  Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader

  by James Grauerholz, William S. Burroughs

  With the publication of Naked Lunch in 1959, William Burroughs abruptly brought international letters into the postmodern age. Beginning with his very early writing (including a chapter from his and Jack Kerouac's never-before-seen collaborative novel), Word Virus follows the arc of Burroughs's remarkable career, from his darkly hilarious "routines" to the experimental cut-up novels to "Cities of the Red Night"... (more)
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  The Adding Machine: Selected Essays

  by William S. Burroughs

  This collection, containing both fiction and nonfiction, is representative of Burroughs's work. The style and tone are vintage Burroughs; the themes of addiction, mind control, and homosexuality central to the novels are explored here more succinctly. The most original material consists of comments on writing and writers: perceptive remarks on Hemingway and Fitzgerald, an interesting comparison of Proust and... (more)
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  Queer: A Novel

  by William S. Burroughs

  In an introduction, Burroughs observes that he wrote this heretofore unpublished picaresque novel in 1951, well before Naked Lunch established his reputation. He reveals that the book had its genesis in a terrible event: his accidental shooting to death of his wife, Joan, a tragedy that released the black wellsprings of his talent. The narrative recounts the hallucinatory life of William Lee, an American in Mexico... (more)