Letters 1945 59

Author: William S. Burroughs

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $29.95 AUD
  • : 9780141189888
  • : Penguin Books Ltd
  • : Penguin Classics
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  • : 0.352
  • : October 2009
  • : 198mm X 129mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : 29.95
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  • : books

Special Fields

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  • : William S. Burroughs
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  • : Paperback
  • : 1009
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  • : 813.54
  • :
  • :
  • : 512
  • : Essays, journals, letters & other prose works
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Barcode 9780141189888
9780141189888

Description

Beginning as surprisingly formal notes from the road to his friends Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, the letters gradually deepen in substance and style. Burroughs' letters show the development of both the man and the writer, vividly documenting his (often turbulent) personal and cultural history. The collection provides a key to opening up and contextualizing Burroughs' fiction, but more than that it shows how letter-writing was itself integral to his life and creative process.

Author description

William S. Burroughs was born on February 5, 1914 in St Louis. In work and in life Burroughs expressed a lifelong subversion of the morality, politics and economics of modern America. To escape those conditions, and in particular his treatment as a homosexual and a drug-user, Burroughs left his homeland in 1950, and soon after began writing. By the time of his death he was widely recognised as one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the twentieth century. His numerous books include Naked Lunch, Junky, Queer, Nova Express, Interzone, The Wild Boys, The Ticket That Exploded and The Soft Machine. After living in Mexico City, Tangier, Paris, and London, Burroughs finally returned to America in 1974. He died in 1997.