William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs was born in 1914 in Missouri, United States. In 1953, he published his first semi-autobiographical novel, "Junky" (published by Topos, 2009), which is considered the most characteristic depiction of the nightmarish struggle against drugs, an experience that plagued him for almost his entire life. In 1951, he accidentally killed his wife while they were drunkenly playing William Tell, an act that sent him to prison and a psychiatric hospital. Burroughs, along with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, is considered one of the most prominent representatives of the Beat Generation in literature. His exploration of language ("language is a virus") and his experiments with text (the famous cut-ups: "anyone with a pair of scissors can become a poet") are integral elements of his work. His most well-known works include the novels "Naked Lunch" (1956/ published by Topos, 2010), "Queer" (1986/ published by Topos, 2010), and "Exterminator!" (1973), as well as the trilogies "Nova Express" ("The Soft Machine," "Nova Express," "The Ticket That Exploded") and "Red Night Trilogy" ("Cities of the Red Night," "The Place of Dead Roads," "The Western Lands"). Topos also publishes the book that inaugurated the Beat Generation (co-written with Jack Kerouac), "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks." He passed away in 1997.