Book description
Burroughs first novel, a largely autobiographical account of the
constant cycle of drug dependency, cures and relapses, remains the most
unflinching, unsentimental account of addiction ever written. Through
junk neighbourhoods in New York, New Orleans and Mexico City, through
time spent kicking, time spent dealing and time rolling drunks for
money, through junk sickness and a sanatorium,
Junky
is a field report (by a writer trained in anthropology at Harvard) from
the American post-war drug underground. A cult classic, it has
influenced generations of writers with its raw, sparse and unapologetic
tone. This definitive edition painstakingly recreates the author s
original text word for word. 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.
