Language is a virus from outer space.
Birthplace St Louis, Missouri, US Education Harvard, US Other jobs Parental support allowed him to avoid the daylight world of work, though at one point he set up as a Texas farmer, growing oranges, cotton and marijuana. Now read on Track down JG Ballard's Atrocity Exhibition, with a preface by Burroughs. As the ultimate rebel, Burroughs was the god of rock gods from Patti Smith to Kurt Cobain, and his bitterly laconic spoken-word recordings are worth a listen. Adaptations David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch purported to film the unfilmable, but was forced in its search for plot to turn to the author's life story. The Adding Machine, an essay collection, is a cogent introduction to Burroughs's thought.