William S. Burroughs

Books such as "Naked Lunch" have established William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) as an iconic figure of the Beat generation. In "William S. Burroughs", Phil Baker investigates this cult writer's life and work, and his self-portrayal as an explorer of inner space, reporting back from the frontiers of experience. Burroughs' theories on dreams and subjective time travel are explored, as well as his visions of drug states as places and a Gnostic liberation beyond time and existence. After accidentally shooting his wife in 1951, Burroughs felt his destiny as a writer was bound up with a struggle to come to terms with the 'Ugly Spirit' that had possessed him. His early absorption in psychoanalysis shifted through Scientology, demonology and Native American mysticism, and he came to believe in an increasingly magical universe, sending curses and operating a 'wishing machine'. His lifelong preoccupation with freedom and its opposites - forms of control or addiction - coupled with the globally paranoid vision of his middle work can be seen to evolve into ecological concern and a Manichaean divide between 'Johnsons' (decent people) and those who impose themselves upon others, wrecking the planet in the process. Drawing on newly available material, and rooted in Burroughs' vulnerable emotional life and seminal friendships, this insightful and revealing study follows the writer around the world - New York in the '40s, Mexico and the South American jungle, Tangier and the writing of Naked Lunch, Paris and the Beat Hotel, '60s London, and small-town Kansas - to provide a powerful and lucid account of his career and significance.