Naked Lunch | Suggested Reading

Naked Lunch Related Titles

The material which was transformed into Naked Lunch from Burroughs's "Word Hoard," consisting of letters, journals, and other writings, contained sufficient additional matter to form the basis for the first trilogy, The Soft Machine (1961), The Ticket That Exploded (1962), and Nova Express (1964). For these books, however, Burroughs has further advanced the concept of a nontraditional narrative, incorporating the "cut-up" and "fold-in" methods which he devised with Brion Gysin. Since Burroughs is, in Grauerholz's words, "one of the great recyclers in literary history," it is not surprising to see the same sources revised and reorganized into many different "books." An examination of his Collected Letters (1993) and of Grauerholz's interesting compilation Interzone (1989) will also show some of the material included in Naked Lunch in earlier versions.