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Jan 1, 1914 — Jan 1, 1997· 83 yrs

UNITED STATES AUTHOR · FICTION · SCIENCE FICTION

William S. Burroughs

Also known as: Burroughs, William S., William Seward Burroughs

40
BOOKS
3.8
AVG RATING (88)
5
READERS

William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist. He is widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced both underground and popular culture and literature. Much of Burroughs's work is highly experimental and features unreliable narrators. Also noted as semi-autobiographical, his work often drew from his experiences with drug addiction, and featured his various places of residence as settings in much of his work. With Brion Gysin, Burroughs popularized the cut-up, an aleatory literary technique.

St. Louis, United States
Wikipedia

Farnsworth, the District Health Officer, was a man so grudging in what he asked of life that every win was a loss; yet he was not without a certain plodding persistence of effort and effectiveness in his limited area.

— from Cities of the Red Night, 1982

Most acclaimed

#1

Junky

1994

3.9 (23)

A semi-autobiographical account, narrated in a matter-of-fact manner, of the author’s life as a drug addict. The story ranges from the backstreets of New York to a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kentucky, the bars of New Orleans and on to Mexico, recounting the difficulties of obtaining drugs, financial problems and homosexual encounters. Burroughs significantly stretched the boundaries of publishable material with his debut novel.

#2

Rub Out The Words The Letters Of William S Burroughs 19591974

0.0 (0)

Presenting a glimpse into the private life of the misunderstood writer, this collection of letters from the 1960s and 1970s reveals the era in which Burroughs became an influential artistic and cultural leader beyond the literary world.

#3

Word virus

4.0 (2)

Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader brings together selections of Burroughs' most important and challenging work - beginning with his very early writing (including a chapter from his and Jack Kerouac's never-before-seen collaborative novel, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks) and following his trajectory through My Education: A Book of Dreams. Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader follows major themes in Burroughs' oeuvre while also serving up a sampling of his darkly hilarious "routines," and is edited to serve as a tool for the scholar as well as an overview of his entire body of work for the general reader.

Books

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