William S. Burroughs was a primary figure of the Beat Generation who wrote in the postmodern paranoid fiction genre. Jack Kerouac called Burroughs the "greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift," while Norman Mailer declared him "the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius." While he is best known for the novels Naked Lunch, Queer, and Junkie, he also collaborated with artists such as Laurie Anderson, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Gus Van Sant, David Cronenberg, and Sonic Youth to produce films, music, and performance pieces. Geoffrey D. Smith is Professor Emeritus, former head of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library of The Ohio State University Libraries, and adjunct professor in the Department of English. He was also longtime steward of the William S. Burroughs Collection at Ohio State. John M. Bennett is the founding curator of the Avant Writing Collection at The Ohio State University Libraries. He was editor of the international literary journal Lost and Found Times from 1975 to 2005 and is the publisher of Luna Bisonte Prods, promoting avant literatures since 1974. V. Vale is a counterculture writer and publisher and the sole proprietor/founder of RE/Search Publications. He published part of Burroughs' "The Revised Boy Scout Manual" in 1982 in RE/Search #4/5: William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Throbbing Gristle. Antonio García is a visual artist, scholar, and philologist studying William S. Burroughs' work as a process-based art form.
"Burroughs's jarringly piecemeal satire on how to prepare for a
revolution against powerful, oppressive institutions is strikingly
timely." --Publishers Weekly
"Here we have Bill Burroughs' voice coming through loud and clear,
like a conversation after his first large whiskey, London c. 1972.
His preoccupations at the time: weaponry, viruses, tape recorder
cut-ups, Scientology techniques, the Mayan calendar, and
Korzybski's General Semantics are utilized as means to deal with
'the shits.' Never has a text been more apposite. As usual his
ideas are developed into hilarious routines, but at heart he is
deadly serious: 'I mean every word I say.' It is wonderful to see
this legendary text in print at last." --Barry Miles, author of
Call Me Burroughs
"The Revised Boy Scout Manual offers easy-to-read proof that the
uncensored human imagination, when allowed to freely extrapolate
about future social change, can offer outrageous scenarios and
fresh language capable of inspiring readers decades into the
future." --V. Vale, founder and publisher of RE/Search
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