|
The Latest News and Features
A Burroughs' Chronology:
|
| 1914 |
Born Febuary 5, in
St. Louis, Missouri |
| 1926-36 |
Secondary studies,
then B.A. from Harvard. |
| 1938 |
Chicago. Barman,
private detective, exterminator of hypocrites . . . |
| 1944 |
New York. Meets Jack
Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. |
| 1946 |
Trouble with the
police: Burroughs leaves for Texas with his common-law wife, Joan Vollmer. |
| 1947 |
Birth of his son,
William Burroughs III. |
| 1948 |
New Orleans. Arrested
for drugs. |
| 1949 |
Mexico. Burroughs
puts himself into writing. Visits Ecuador in search of yage. |
| 1951 |
A night of drunkeness,
he kills Joan while playing William Tell. Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru. |
| 1953 |
Publication of "Junkie,"
under the pseudonym of William Lee and in expurgated version by Ace Books. |
| 1954 |
Tangiers. He sets
himself up in a boys' brothel and plunges into drugs. |
| 1955 |
London. Undergoes
treatment for his addiction. |
| 1957 |
Paris. He writes
"Naked Lunch," published in 1959 by Maurice Girodias at Olympia Press. |
| 1960 |
Burroughs lives in
London. |
| 1961 |
He meets Timothy
Leary, "the Father of LSD." Publication of "The Soft Machine" by Olympia
Press. |
| 1962 |
"The Ticket That
Exploded," Olympia Press. |
| 1964 |
"Nova Express," published
by Grove. |
| 1967 |
Tangiers. He finishes
"The Wild Boys." |
| 1970-74 |
London. A life "relatively
calm and without disruption." |
| 1974 |
New York. David Bowie,
Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, the Rolling Stones, Zappa pay court. |
| 1975 |
At 222 Bowery, he
lives in the "Bunker," a former YMCA, with guns and a target. |
| 1980 |
Burroughs starts
doing heroin again and writes "Cities of the Red Night." |
| 1981 |
Awarded the Medal
of Arts and Letters by Jack Lang. He lectures at the Palace. Moves to Lawrence,
KS. |
| 1983 |
Inducted into the
Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. |
| 1986 |
Death of his friend
Brion Gysin. Deep depression. |
| 1988-89 |
On a proposal by
Bob Wilson, he writes the libretto for "The Black Rider," music by Tom Waits.
He acts in Laurie Anderson's "Home of the Brave," and Gus Van Sant's "Drugstore
Cowboy." |
| 1990 |
David Cronenberg
films "Naked Lunch." |
| 1990-96 |
Appears in various
music videos, recordings, Nike ad campaign, GAP ad campaign, "Twister,"
etc. . |
| 1997 |
Dies of a heart attack
on August 2 in Lawrence, Kansas at 83 years old |
