William S. Burroughs Books

William S. Burroughs was a groundbreaking literary figure whose works like "Junky" and "Naked Lunch" transformed American culture. In this anticipated collection, editor Bill Morgan presents over three hundred letters from the early sixties to the mid-seventies, showcasing Burroughs' evolution away from the Beat circle and into a new creative community that solidified his status as an influential cultural leader. Addressed to notable figures such as Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac, Timothy Leary, and his son Billy, these letters illuminate Burroughs' controversial artistic process, literary experimentation, and complex personal life. They also include correspondence with new friends in North Africa and Europe, such as Paul Bowles, Ian Sommerville, Michael Portman, Alex Trocchi, and surrealist artist Brion Gysin, whose "cut-up method" significantly impacted Burroughs' writing. This collection offers an intimate glimpse into the life of a misunderstood artist, presenting an unforgettable portrait of one of the twentieth century's most uncompromising literary personalities.

The novella began as a story treatment for a proposed film adaptation of Alan E. Nourse's novel The Bladerunner. A later edition published in the 1980s changed the formatting of the title to Blade Runner, a movie. Burroughs' treatment is set in the early 21st century and involves mutated viruses and 'a medical-care apocalypse'. The term 'blade runner' referred to a smuggler of medical supplies, e.g. scalpels.

First published in 1963 and representing Burroughs's literary breakthrough in the UK, Dead Fingers Talk is, in the words of Burroughs scholar Prof. Oliver Harris, a prophetic work of haunting power, and is perhaps the most commercial and accessible of his works. Combining new material with selections from Naked Lunch and his cut-up novels The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded, the book is also a fascinating precursor to remix and mash-up forms in art and music, which owe much to Burroughs's influence. This newly edited edition of Dead Fingers Talk, based on the restored text of the novel, will delight all Burroughs fans and lovers of experimental literature, and offer a new insight into the artistic process of one of the most original and influential writers of the twentieth century.

The book promises sheer pleasure and entertainment, as highlighted by the "Chicago Sun-Times." It captivates readers with its engaging narrative and delightful characters, ensuring a wonderfully entertaining experience throughout.

"Climate: Into the 21st Century" offers a collection of essays by top meteorological experts, detailing the global climate system of the 20th century. It highlights extreme climatic events, advancements in climate observation, and predictability. Illustrated and engaging, it's ideal for both general readers and educational use.

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 book only he could create.

William Burroughs died in August 1997, after a lifetime of notoriety. In his final years, he was writing only in his journals. The last nine months of his diaries are here, in Last Words, and they form a complex, rarely seen, personal portrait of Burroughs at the end of his life, coming to terms with aging and death.

A mix of autobiographical episodes and extraordinary Egyptian theology

Depicts the addict's life: his hallucinations, his ghostly nocturnal wanderings, his strange sexuality, and his hunger for the needle. Following its hero from his midwestern birthplace to New York, New Orleans, and Mexico City. Based on the author's own experiences

William S. Burroughs explores the reality of a selective plague threatening Earth, addressing the consequences of globalization for humanity long before September 11. The book features illustrations by Chris Kohlhöfer.

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; the first of the trilogy with The Place of the Dead Roads and his final novel The Western Lands.

Exploring themes of political urgency and societal critique, this book is the most intense installment of Burroughs's "cut-up" trilogy. It propels readers into a surreal narrative that critiques the destructive forces of the Nova Mob while revealing the stark realities of our world. The revised edition, edited by Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris, features new materials and an introduction, showcasing the depth of Burroughs's original manuscripts and his call to reclaim our world from corruption.

Here, accompanied by dozens of unique photographs, are the very best of Victor Bockris's infamous interviews, essays, and observations on the stars of downtown Manhattan in the 1970s and 1980s. The internationally acclaimed biographer Bockris was there as a witness, friend, collaborator, and co-conspirator. Some of the stars were founding members of Beat or Punk, others were just passing through. But all of them—rockers, rebels, artists, and intellectuals—revealed more to Bockris than they did to any other writer: Allen Ginsberg, Richard Hell, Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, Debbie Harry, William Burroughs, Patti Smith, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Richards, Terry Southern, Martin Amis, and Susan Sontag. Bockris's conclusion—that Punk owed the Beats a big debt and that the Beats were in turn re-animated by the Punks—is argued from the perspective of someone who was in the thick of it, and who loved every minute of it.

A literary collection of explicit writings--fiction, poetry, and essays--addresses "high risk" subject matter, such as illicit sex, incest, bondage, drug use, and transsexuality, and features contributions by progressive writers including Dorothy Allison, William Burroughs, and Kathy Acker. Reissue.

In alternating chapters that reveal a nascent period in their development as two of the twentieth century's most influential writers, Beat Generation icons William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac's And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanksis an electrifying true-life mystery, including afterword by James Grauerholtz in Penguin Modern Classics.This is a hardboiled crime novel, and a true story. In 1944, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs, then still unknown writers, were both arrested following a murder- one of their friends had stabbed another and then come to them for advice - neither had told the police. Later they wrote this fictionalised account of that summer - of a group of friends in wartime New York, moving through each other's apartments, drinking, necking, talking and taking drugs and haphazardly drifting towards a bloody crime. Unpublished for years, And the Hippos were Boiled in their Tanksis a remarkable insight into the lives and literary development of two great writers. If you enjoyed And the Hippos were Boiled in their Tanks, you might like Kerouac's On the Road, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.'The novel that kicked it all off'Independent'An insight into Kerouac before he went on the road and Burroughs before his drug use spiralled out of control, this is a major literary event'GQ

An early epistolary novel by William Burroughs, whose 1951 account of himself as as junkie, published under the pseudonym William Lee, ended Yage may be the final fix. In letters to Allen Ginsberg, an unknown young poet in New York, his journey to the Amazon jungle is recorded, detailing picaresque incidents of a search for a telepathic-hallucinogenic-mind-expanding drug called yage (Ayahuasca, or Banisteripsis Caape), used by Amazon indian doctors for finding lost objects, mostly bodies and souls. Author and recipient of these letters met again in New York, Christmas 1953, and edited the writings to form this single book. The correspondence contains the first seeds of the later Burroughsian fantasy in Naked Lunch. Seven years later Ginsberg in Peru writes his old guru an account of his own visions and terrors with the same drug, appealing for further counsel. Burroughs' mysterious reply is sent. The volume concludes with two epilogues: a short note from Ginsberg on his return from the Orient years later reassuring Self that he is still here on earth, and a final poetic cut-up by Burroughs, I am dying, Meester?

While living in Tangiers in the 1950s, Burroughs wrote "a startling collection of short stories, autobiographical sketches, letters, and diary entries, all of which showcase his trademark mordant humor, while delineating the addictions to drugs and sex that are the central metaphors of his work."--Cover, Penguin ed

Before 'Trainspotting', there was 'Junky': the original, first-hand acount of heroin addiction which outraged '50s America and influenced generations to come.

For more than three decades, while its writer's world fame increased, Queer remained unpublished because of its forthright depiction of homosexual longings. Set in the corrupt and spectral Mexico City of the forties, Queer is the story of William Lee, a man afflicted with both acute heroin withdrawal and romantic and sexual yearnings for an indifferent user named Eugene Allerton. The narrative is punctuated by Lee's outrageous "routines" — brilliant comic monologues that foreshadow Naked Lunch —yet the atmosphere is heavy with foreboding.In his extraordinary introduction, Burroughs reflects on the shattering events in his life that lay behind this work.

In this funny, nightmarish masterpiece of imaginative excess, grotesque characters engage in acts of violent one-upmanship, boundless riches mangle a corner of Africa into a Bacchanalian utopia, and technology, flesh and violence fuse with and undo each other

The anarchic, phenomenally strong-selling classic from the godfather of the Beats, featuring for the first time the restored text, all the accompanying essays, and newly discovered material from the original manuscript.

A controversial reworking of well-trodden American myth by the author of ‘Naked Lunch’.

This is the second novel, alongside 'The Soft Machine' and 'Nova Express', in William Burroughs' classic 'Cut-Up Trilogy'. A prophetic vision of a world in which technology has gone haywire, 'The Ticket That Exploded' continues the adventures of Agent Lee in his mission to investigate and subvert the methods of mind control being used by The Nova Mob. Experimental, unnerving and compelling in equal measure, this is a completely original work of science fiction and a gripping moral and political fable from post-war America's most controversial and influential writer.

'He felt a sudden deep pity for the finger joint that lay there on the dresser, a few drops of blood gathering around the white bone.' A deliberately severed finger, a junky's Christmas miracle and a Tangier con-artist, among others, feature in these hallucinogenic sketches and stories from the infamous Beat legend. Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

In this surreal, savage fantasy, the sequel to "Naked Lunch", Burroughs develops his "cut-up" technique, randomly cutting up and folding in words to transform the narrative into a new, imaginative form of prose poetry.

Маленький роман, который навеки изменил лицо современной нонконформистской прозы. Роман, который открыл миру страшную тему наркозависимости - и тем самым открыл путь в литературу для Хантера Томпсона, Ирвина Уэлша и многих других мастеров, для которых эта больная тема стала ключевой в творчестве. Странная, безжалостная и гениальная книга, в которой мир реальности причудливо и изощренно сочетается с миром фантазий и галлюцинаций. Блистательно написанный "путеводитель по аду", который заставил бы содрогнуться в ужасе самого Данте, - ведь ад от Берроуза есть не вымысел, а реальность.

The irrational, all-pervading violence of the modern world is the subject of this extraordinary tour de force. The central character’s dreams are haunted by images of John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, dead astronauts and car-crash victims as he traverses the screaming wastes of nervous breakdown. Seeking his sanity, he casts himself in a number of roles: H-bomber pilot, presidential assassin, crash victim, psychopath. Finally, through the black, perverse magic of violence he transcends his psychic turmoil to find the key to a bizarre new sexuality. In this revised edition, Ballard has added extensive annotation that help to unlock many of the mysteries of one of the most prophetic, enigmatic and original works of the late twentieth century. This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard’s works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Neil Gaiman, Iain Sinclair, James Lever and Ali Smith) and brand-new cover designs.

William S. Burroughs: SCIENTOLOGY/ ALI'S SMILE Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der Church of Scientology

Uscito nel 1959, Il pasto nudo è forse la più cruda testimonianza letteraria, avvincente e disturbante al tempo stesso, prodotta dalla beat-generation americana. Più che un romanzo, può essere definito un vorticoso assemblaggio di frammenti di vita, vissuti spesso al di sotto della soglia della coscienza e dominati dallo scatenamento di istinti, pulsioni e perversioni, sotto il segno devastante della tossicodipendenza. Lo smarrimento esistenziale, che accomuna l’autore a tanti altri compagni di strada, si condensa nel libro in una irrevocabile condanna al vuoto d’essere e all’autodistruzione, giocata sul filo che distingue e insieme congiunge una realtà irreparabilmente degradata e una fantasia allucinata, distorta: ai “paradisi artificiali” di baudelairiana memoria si sostituisce quiun inferno altrettanto artificiale e ben più definitivo, nel quale l’individuo finisce con lo smarrire quasi del tutto la propria identità e la propria storia.

Sarà probabilmente una sorpresa per molti scoprire che William Burroughs, l'efferato cantore di saghe che si svolgono in terre di mutanti e in cui l'umanità è una sopravvivenza arcaica, ha anche scritto uno dei più delicati e percettivi libretti che conosciamo sui gatti – anzi, più precisamente, sul gatto come «compagno psichico». Gatti bianchi, gatti arancioni, gatti persiani; gatti amati, gatti di strada; gatti soprannaturali come piccoli dèi del focolare; creature con un che di felino, un che di umano e un che di «ancora inimmaginabile», frutto di unioni arcane e lontanissime che l'autore si sente chiamato a rievocare e a proteggere come un benefico Guardiano: sono questi i protagonisti a cui Burroughs dà la parola. La sua voce diventa piana, pur mantenendo una vibrazione inquietante. E l'affinità immediata fra l'autore e questi esseri appare palese, ancor più di quella con altri suoi personaggi. Le storie, le osservazioni, hanno una naturalezza carica di intensità, forse perché in queste pagine Burroughs ha nascosto «un'allegoria», visitando il suo passato come una «sciarada gattesca». Il gatto in noi è uscito per la prima volta a New York nel 1986 in un'edizione a tiratura limitata e poi, sempre a New York, nel 1992.

"Last Words" von Burroughs ist eine "Autobiographie in Bruchstücken", die wichtige Lebensstationen, Begegnungen und Werke thematisiert. Er gilt als Vater der Pop-Literatur und erfand das Cut-up-Verfahren. Das Buch kombiniert Tagebuch, Erinnerungen, Traumsequenzen und politische Kommentare.

In Florida verbringen der Ich-Erzähler und sein Freund Chad ihre Zeit high und träumen von mehr Speed, kehren jedoch widerwillig in ihr bürgerliches Leben in Palm Beach zurück. Schließlich brechen sie nach New York auf, auf der Suche nach Abenteuer, Sex und Drogen. Doch die Mädchen in der Stadt sind bereits erschöpft und verbraucht, während die Freunde alles tun, um ihre Sucht zu stillen. Sie konsumieren und dealen Drogen, stehlen, um ihre Bedürfnisse zu befriedigen. Auf der Flucht vor einer Gesellschaft, die sie enttäuscht hat, landen sie in heruntergekommenen Fixerbuden und sehen nur noch sich selbst, wie sie high in den Abgrund stürzen. Ihr Abenteuer in New York wird zu einem Albtraum; die Stadt wird zum Horrortrip. Die Beschreibung New Yorks ist schonungslos, der Beton erdrückend, die Menschen erscheinen als winzige Wesen, die durch die Straßen kriechen, gesichtslos und isoliert. Die Atmosphäre der vermeintlichen Freiheit wird durch Drogen verstärkt, während die Stadt sowohl als Horror-Center als auch als transzendentaler Sammelplatz einer Ungesellschaft erlebt wird. William Burroughs Jr., Sohn des bekannten Beat-Poeten, starb früh an den Folgen seines Drogenkonsums und hinterließ neben diesem autobiografischen Werk nur zwei weitere unvollendete Schriften.

Am 5. Februar 2014 wäre Burroughs, der jahrzehntelang die Subkultur in den USA prägte, 100 geworden. Die Briefe aus seiner Zeit im Exil zeigen viele bislang unbekannte Seiten seiner Biographie. Der Schriftsteller wurde damals zur zentralen Figur eines neuen Zirkels von Künstlern, die zur Beatgeneration nur noch eine lose Verbindung hatten. Es sah noch nicht so aus, als würden seine experimentellen Arbeiten jemals das Licht der Welt erblicken. Neben dem Kampf um Anerkennung geben die Briefe auch faszinierende Einblicke in seine obsessive Suche nach dem perfekten Text. Und sie offenbaren, wie sehr die Radikalität der Texte mit der des Privatmenschen Burroughs zusammenhängt.

Autobiografie s předmluvou W. S. Burroughse - osobní a kulturní dějepis jedné epochy. T.Leary zakončil studia doktorátem z klinické psychologie. Na Harvardu vedl projekt psychedelického bádání. Po návratu z vězení, kde strávil několik let, dále pokračoval ve výzkumu a v popularizaci drogové kultury.

Sbírka dopisů, deníkových poznámek, povídek a autobiografických črt z poloviny 50. let doplňují a zpřesňují obraz autora, který tolik ovlivnil kontrakulturu 60. let a svými popisy nočních můr, prorockých vizí a svobodou myšlení zasáhl do nejrůznějších oborů –heavymetalu, sci-fi literatury a filosofie. Interzóna – což byl pracovní název pro knihu, jež později vyšla jako Nahý oběd – sestává ze tří částí: „Příběhy“, „Leeův deník“ a „Slovo“. Pokud chcete vědět, co se skrývá pod výrazem hipster a hisperská mluva, zapomeňte na Jacka Kerouaka i Neala Cassadyho. Přečtěte si Interzónu.

Ve vyvrcholení Burroughsovy trilogie se v kratších prózách opět pohybujeme v krajích děsivých nočních můr, vzdáleně připomínajících pralesy Jižní Ameriky, v mimozemském prostoru, ale i v ulicích Londýna a jeho podsvětí. Burroughs své povídky opět zaplnil fantastickými postavami z ještě fantastičtějších – a hrozivějších – světů a jeho mistrná koláž, pracující s prvky populární kultury, reklamy, sci-fi a detektivní prózy a popisující neznámé drogy i sex ve všech podobách, nemá za cíl šokovat, ale poukazovat. Varovat. William Burroughs je zcela nenapodobitelný, a to nejen ve svém psaní, hlavně ale v síle a pravdivosti svých idejí, které se nám snaží předat – dříve, než bude pozdě.

Toto vydání obsahuje dvě knihy – Teplouš (Burroughs) a Dopisy o Yage (Burroughs / Ginsberg). „Protagonista mého prvního románu Feťák, Lee, se jeví jako zcela integrovaný a soběstačný, jistý si sám sebou i tím, kam směřuje. V Teploušovi je rozložený, zoufale někoho potřebuje, ať užznámého nebo prostě nějaký kontakt, je naprosto nejistý sám sebou i smyslem své existence.“ Kniha, která nás opět díky svému věcnému jazyku a suchému stylu, temnému humoru a agresivní energii uvádí do Burroughsových vizí, jež se už dávno staly skutečností. Kniha byla napsána v roce 1952, poprvé však vyšla až v roce 1985, česky pak v roce 1991.

Román spatřil světlo světa po Burroughsově návratu z dobrovolného exilu, a přestože vznikl během tvůrčího bloku, patří k autorovým vrcholným dílům, srovnatelným kupříkladu s "Nahým obědem". Děj knihy se odvíjí ve třech zdánlivě nezávislých rovinách, které se zvolna prolínají, aby nakonec zbořily veškeré předem stanovené jistoty.

Kde jinde se může čtenář dobrat podstaty Burroughsova díla než v jeho sugestivních snech, jež samy o sobě zpochybňují strukturu každodenní reality? Stovky snových zážitků zde vytvářejí spirálovité jádro jedinečného a znepokojujícího putování za práh lidského vědomí, jakési školy života. Burroughs knihu napsal v roce 1995.

Burroughs byl posledním mohykánem beatnické generace. Kerouac je dávno mrtvý, Ginsberg a Leary zemřeli během práce na těchto denících. Burroughs je sice jedním z nich, avšak plným právem je řazen mezi největší americké spisovatele 20. století. Byl vždycky desperátem, po celý svůj život závislým, povětšinou na heroinu. Jeho poslední slova jsou intimní výpovědí člověka vyrovnávajícího se s vlastním životem a smrtí – zahrnují posledních devět měsíců jeho života. Jejich prostřednictvím máme možnost nahlédnout upřímného a zranitelného člověka, zápasícího s pocity viny. Po celý život zaujatý smrtí, jí tváří v tvář řekl: „Láska? Co je to? Ten nejpřirozenější utišující prostředek, který je k mání.“

Tato kniha obsahuje krátké povídky a ukázky od amerických autorů, kteří reprezentují legendární beatnickou kulturu, jejímž centrem bylo San Francisco. Mezi hlavními autory najdeme Ferlinghettiho, Cassadyho, Kerouaca, Ginsberga a Corsoa, doplněné o další autory z Ameriky a Evropy. Výbor představuje literární díla dvaceti autorů spolu s úvodními informacemi o jejich životech a je zakončen esejem Aldouse Huxleyho o vlivu drog na uměleckou tvorbu. Povídky se zabývají tématy, která zkoumají neprozkoumané oblasti lidské mysli, odhalují bizarní vize a extrémní zážitky. Autoři se vydávají na cesty fantazie vyvolané halucinogeny, setkávají se s obrazy ráje i temnoty, smrti a sebezničení. Tato antologie je pro dnešního čtenáře ukázkou svobody tvorby psychedelické generace šedesátých let, která zanechala nesmazatelnou stopu v moderní literatuře. Obsahuje úryvky a povídky od autorů jako Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg a další, včetně esejů a rozhovorů, které reflektují jejich jedinečné pohledy na svět.

S Williamem S. Burroughsem hovořil Conrad Knickerbocker.

Soubor povídek s velmi nekonvenčním námětem i formou, obsahuje science-fiction, drobné horory, halucinační a filosofické texty.

Drásavá výpověď o duševních stavech a pocitech narkomana a homosexuála, který marně touží po naplnění své lásky, je do značné míry autobiografická. Kniha z roku 1952 se odehrává v exotickém prostředí tehdejšího Mexico City, mezi různými životními ztroskotanci a je volným pokračováním autorovy románové prvotiny Feťák. Hlavní hrdina tentokrát prochází těžkými abstinenčními příznaky, které mu ve své děsivosti jen pozvolna odkrývají nepřátelský vnější svět a nechávají ho bezbranného vůči znepokojujícím vizím. Bolestivý návrat z drogové izolace se hrdina snaží zmírnit snahou nalézt partnera, lásku, která by zároveň byla vědomým kontaktem s okolním světem. Když však i tady ztroskotává, vydává se do Jižní Ameriky hledat záhadnou rostlinu, jejíhož odvaru používají místní léčitelé.