Burroughs At 100: Conversation w/ Beat Historian Barry Miles | SF

Submitted by the Event Organizer

On the occasion of the 100th birthday of the influential counter-culture legend, William S Burroughs, City Lights in conjunction with the San Francisco Art Institute presents an evening with Barry Miles joined in conversation by V Vale exploring the life and work of one of the most important American writers.

In Call Me Burrows, biographer and Beat historian Barry Miles presents the first full-length biography of Burroughs to be published in a quarter century—and the first one to chronicle the last decade of Burroughs’s life and examine his long-term cultural legacy. V Vale is one of the countries leading archivist of Burroughs related material. Having known him personally, he will add anecdotes and insights to the discussion.

William S. Burroughs was the original cult figure of the Beat Movement, and with the publication of his novel, Naked Lunch, which was originally banned for obscenity, he became a guru to the ’60s youth counterculture. Fifty years ago, Norman Mailer asserted, “William Burroughs is the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius.” He wrote novels, memoirs, technical manuals, and poetry. He painted, made collages, took thousands of photographs, produced hundreds of hours of experimental recordings, acted in movies, and recorded more CDs than most rock bands.

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