William S.Burroughs

author, postmodern, slipstream, science fiction, beat, culture, social history, consciousness, mind control, addiction, drugs, sex, homosexuality, cyberpunk

Full name: William Seward Burroughs II.
Born 5 February 1914 in Saint Louis, Missouri, United States.
Parents: Mortimer and Laura Lee.
Brother: Mortimer Burroughs Jr.

Burroughs is the grandson of the inventor of the adding machine.

Wife: Joan Vollmer Adams. [Died in a notorious 'William Tell-like' incident, where during a drunken evening, Bill Burroughs failed to shoot the wine glass off Joan's head.]

"Burroughs is a beat legend, played guru, or teacher, to Kerouac and Ginsberg, has played with drugs, pistols, human life, human consciousness, a quicksilver daredevil with an extra-high IQ. Says of his work: 'I write about what is in front of my senses at the moment of writing. I do not presume to impose story or plot or continuity.' His underground novel [Naked Lunch --ed.]... is a quick-shifting pinwheel of the modern scene; has mad biting humor and sections of technological horror that out-Orwell Orwell". --Seymour Krim (in The Beats , 1960).

"Burroughs' sensory-overload style of writing has influenced a whole new generation of authors, among them William Gibson and the cyberpunk scene.

"Full of seminal imagination, Burroughs' work has redefined the novel in the late 20th century". --Henry W.Targowski (in Mark/Space , 1995).

"Beat, Hippie, Punk (cyber or otherwise), Radical Crazy Mutant... every real advance in American writing is rooted in his work, or graced by the spectral gray image of his presence, Buster Keaton in banker's drag, dessicated junky prophet. Burroughs' writing is based on oral 'routines', satiric or surreal monologues which later grow, expand, implode and fold in on themselves to produce the finished books". -- (in Semiotext(e) SF 14 , 1989).

William Burroughs has released album versions of his works, among them the brilliant Call Me Burroughs (which is an absolute must), Uncommon Quotes , Dead City Radio , and The Priest They Called Him (with Kurt Cobain of Nirvana on guitar). He has also recorded a number of works for Giorno Poetry Systems.

Burroughs has also appeared in a handful of independent films, numerous documentaries, and has been the subject of a major motion picture film -- Naked Lunch -- directed by David Cronenberg.

William S.Burroughs divides his time between New York City and Lawrence, Kansas.

"So I am a public agent and don't know who I work for, get my instructions from street signs, newspapers and pieces of conversation". --William S.Burroughs (spoken by a character in The Soft Machine , 1966).

Extremely influential.

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hwt@anachron.demon.co.uk

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