Naked Lunch (Censorship (Ready Reference series))
At a glance:
- Author: William S. Burroughs
- First Published: 1959
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Fantasy
- Subjects: 1950’s, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Gay men, Homosexuality or homosexuals, Sex or sexuality, Police, New York City, Future, Space flight or travel, West, U.S., Substance abuse, Time travel, New Orleans, Drug addiction or addicts, Drugs, Heroin, Hallucinations or illusions, Space and time, Texas, Metamorphosis or transmogrification, Hallucinogens, Morocco or Moroccans
- Locales: New York, New Orleans, LA, Texas, Interzone (fictive)
The Work
Surrealistic in its tone, this novel is narrated by a drug addict traveling through the American South and Mexico in search of drugs. Along the way he sees grotesque scientific experiments on human beings, subhuman monsters, and bizarre sexual activity. His largely formless narrative ends in violence, with him killing narcotics officers as he struggles through a nightmarish withdrawal from drugs.
When the manuscript of Naked Lunch was almost complete in 1958, Allen Ginsberg sent a copy to French publisher Maurice Girodias, whose Olympia Press had produced...
[The entire page is 624 words long]
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