Burroughs, William S.

Burroughs, William S. ( William Seward Burroughs) (1914–97), American novelist, probably more famous for his life than his literature. His first novel, Junkie (1953), gave a semi-autobiographical account of his time as a drug addict. The Naked Lunch (1959) made him a cause célèbre through its graphic descriptions of sexual sadism, heroin abuse, and darkly satirical imaginings of a totalitarian state. Subsequent novels pursued these themes, with books like The Soft Machine (1961), The Wild Boys (1971), and Cities of the Red Night (1981) focusing on the nature of power and the dynamics of control. His belief that ‘Language is a virus’ led him to employ the ‘cut-up’ technique—a process whereby words or sentences would be taken from any source and reassembled in a way that would defamiliarize them. A similar philosophy underpinned his approach to painting. The random and anarchic were seen as cities of opposition to a universe that he considered to be pre-recorded. Although a homosexual, he married twice and accidentally shot his second wife, Joan, during the staging of a William Tell act. His unrepentant drug-identity gave him an iconic status that would be used in such films as Drugstore Cowboy (1991) and by rock bands such as Nirvana and REM. See also Beat and Beat Generation.