Word Virus

Burroughs

ISBN 10: 080213694X / ISBN 13: 9780802136947

Published by Grove Press, 2000

About this Item

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 and The Cat Inside. Beautifully edited and complemented by James Grauerholz's illuminating biographical essays, Word Virus charts Burroughs's major themes and places the work in the context of the life. It is an excellent tool for the scholar and a delight for the general reader. Throughout a career that spanned half of the twentieth century, William S. Burroughs managed continually to be a visionary among writers. When he died in 1997, the world of letters lost its most elegant outsider.

Seller Inventory # CIN080213694XG

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Word Virus
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080213694X
• ISBN 13: 9780802136947
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

With the publication of Naked Lunch in 1959, William Burroughs brought international letters into the postmodern age, but he had already begun to chart the course that would establish him as one of postwar America’s most influential writers.

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. Important biographical information, contained in the chapter introductions, provide key links to understanding the work in the context of the life. Ann Douglas’s introductory essay provides further background on Burroughs in the context of American letters and his Beat contemporaries.

Throughout a life that spanned the better part of the twentieth century, William Burroughs managed to be a visionary among writers: he imagined the Internet decades before its appearance and peered into the future of other technologies, kept the pace of world affairs and cultural trends, and, with each of his books, introduced new possibilities for the form. When he died in the summer of 1997, the world of letters lost its most elegant outsider.

About the Author

Born into a prominent St. Louis family, in 1914, William S. Burroughs would go on to be one of the most innovative and controversial writers of the twentieth century. He was a founding father of the Beat Generation, whose companions included Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Jack Kerouac.