Naked Lunch
by William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs’s hallucinatory, obscene, grotesquely comic assault on addiction and conventional narrative.
- 1959
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeDrugs, sex, violence, hallucination, grotesque comedy, and unstable scenes replace ordinary plot in Burroughs’s most notorious book. It carries literary transgression beyond Miller into a fractured world that barely obeys narrative logic.
What's inside
A sequence of shifting routines follows William Lee through addiction, pursuit, and hallucinatory territories rather than a conventional linear story.
Why we recommend it
Transgression after Miller
Burroughs pushes sex, the body, drugs, grotesque comedy, and formal disobedience beyond the limits Miller helped break.
What this book explores
Book editions
- Paperback
- Grove Press
- 2013
- 9780802122070
Reader reviews
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Naked Lunch, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1Naked Lunch
NovelOlympia Press, 1959Used forPrimary source for the novel and its publication record.
i
Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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