William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) was an American writer and visual artist, and a primary figure of the Beat Generation. Much of his experimental fiction draws on his own drug addiction, and his Nova Trilogy leans heavily on the cut-up technique he popularized with Brion Gysin. His confessional first novel appeared under the pen name William Lee, while his third, Naked Lunch, became one of the last literary censorship cases in the United States. He died in 1997, and in 1983 he was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.