William S. Burroughs

Play Radio
Listen to William S. Burroughs Radio, featuring artists like Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, Ken Nordine and more…

328,681 plays (34,339 listeners)

Shop now at Amazon | Send Ringtones to Cell
Buy
Add to my Library
William Seward Burroughs II (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American novelist, essayist, social critic and performer. Much of Burroughs’ work is semi-autobiographical cut-up stories. He saw all his writing as a single, vast book.

He is generally allied with the Beats, and while he was close friends with the true Beats like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, his writing never fit with the style. His first couple of novels, Junkie (or Junky) and Queer, were written in a style reminiscent of hard-boiled detective novels. As he became more comfortable with expressing himself through writing, his “routines” were assembled into his most famous work, Naked Lunch , published in 1959. His “cut-up” technique, developed subsequently with fellow inventor-poet Brion Gysin, took over his literary style to produce a number of lesser-known works. With the publication in 1981 of the trilogy starting with Cities of the Red Night he embarked on a further development of style aimed at achieving his expressed intent to “write the great American novel”.

Such a vast amount could be written about Burroughs’ life and legacy; perhaps “lives and legacies” would be more appropriate. His influences are uncountably and immeasurably wide-reaching; it has been argued that without his tape cut-ups, we’d not have thought of sampling and therefore we’d never have had . Equally, without his transgressive, libertarian, shocking subject matter, we may never have had or .
Read more… Edit bio

Popular tags: , , , ,  See more

Share this artist:

Top Albums

See more

Top Tracks

1
62
2
26
3
24
4
20
5
17
6
16
7
15
7
15
9
13
9
13
11
12
12
11
12
11
14
10
15
9
Buy all tracks at Amazon MP3
See more

Shoutbox

Leave a comment. Log in to Last.fm or sign up (it’s free).

  • Witchpenis

    fucking pigeons

    last month

  • Clockwork_Lunch

    Bill ,you are immortal old junky.And I like it.

    March 2012

  • krocronos

    Silver Smoke of Dreams...Sh-eon M13 Froze the 11th......Curse go Back!Curse Go Back!......With his last mooched Nickel, from Gysin, Burroughs called th law, very funny burroughs, Very, funny.

    February 2012

  • Sgarre1

    "ship came apart like a rotten undervest..."

    February 2012

  • flamie_flame

    Up yours with Interzone K.Y.

    December 2011

  • smwxs

    Dr. Benway visits me in my dreams.

    November 2011

  • smithee1407

    Kerouac wasn't a true beat either. He was all American , man.He didn't sit in coffee houses and snap his fingers and shit and wear goatees. He was the least "beat" of them all - especially fashion wise. Same with the guy better'n Shakespeare - W.S.B. He wrote the textbook and the people interpreted how they wanted.

    October 2011

  • efervesencia

    jelou ?

    September 2011
See all 112 shouts

Videos

Listening Now

Top Listeners

See more

More Information

Links
Labels

Email Newsletter

Universal Music Group Get exclusive tour, release & promotion updates on William S. Burroughs from Universal Music.