Cities of the Red Night - Softcover

William S. Burroughs

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0714538167 ISBN 13: 9780714538167

Publisher: Calder Publications Ltd, 1982

Synopsis

William Burroughs reads excerpts from "Cities of the Red Night" and discusses plagues, nuclear holocaust, and writing with host Tom Vitale.

About this title

About the Author

William S. Burroughs was born in St. Louis in 1914. He is best-known work is 1959's Naked Lunch―which became the focus of a landmark 1962 Supreme Court decision that helped eliminate literary censorship in the United States. Described by Norman Mailer as one of America's few writers genuinely "possessed by genius," he died in 1997. His many other works include Junky and The Place of Dead Roads (Picador).

Review

“Cities of the Red Night is Burroughs's masterpiece. In it, the world ends with a bang--and a barely perceived whimper, disguised by the wicked smile of one of the most dazzling magicians of our time.” ―Los Angeles Time Book Review

“Cities of the Red Night is not only Burroughs' best work, but a logical and ripening extension of all of Burroughs's great work.” ―Ken Kesey

“One should approach Cities of the Red Night as the Wagneresque capper of all the five or six homosexual planet-operas Burroughs has scripted since he found a genuine new style in Naked Lunch . . . It's as if we had gotten hold of a black ticket to his unconscious, and anyone who makes the trip will see sights and feel feelings that are unique and mind-bending beyond anyone else's description” ―The Washington Post Book World

“Cities of the Red Night is the most complete and most devastatingly sardonic statement of William Burroughs's apocalyptic vision. Through his mordant satire of cultural aspirations, homosexual eroticism and political power, he focuses our gaze into the abyss. His cold, surgical language creates beauty through a terror that we are just able to bear . . . A modern Inferno.” ―Newsday

Edition details

• Publisher: Calder Publications Ltd
• Publication date: 1982
• ISBN 10: 0714538167
• ISBN 13: 9780714538167
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 332