Naked Lunch Naked Lunch Naked Lunch (sometimes The Naked Lunch) is a novel by American writer William S. Burroughs, originally published in 1959. The book is structured as a series of loosely connected vignettes. Burroughs stated that the chapters are intended to be read in any order. The reader follows the narration of junkie William Lee, who takes on various aliases, from the U.S. to Mexico, eventually to Tangier and the dreamlike Interzone. The vignettes (which Burroughs called "routines") are drawn from Burroughs' own experiences in these places and his addiction to drugs (heroin, morphine, and while in Tangier, majoun [a strong
Naked Lunch the end of every fork." In a June 1960 letter to Allen Ginsberg, Kerouac said that he was pleased that Burroughs had credited him with the title. He states that Ginsberg misread "Naked Lust" from the manuscript, and only he noticed. Kerouac did not specify which manuscript and critics could only speculate until 2003 when Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris established that, in his Lower East Side apartment in fall 1953, Ginsberg had been reading aloud to Kerouac from the manuscript of "Queer", which Burroughs had just brought with him from Mexico City. For the next five years, Burroughs used the