William S Burroughs II lived between February 5, 1914 and August 2,
1997 and was a massive force in American writing.
Most of Burroughs''
work is semi-autobiographical, drawn from his life
wrestling the demons
of opiate addiction. He was a figurehead of the Beat Generation, and
generally seen as a blues sky or off the wall author who influenced
popular culture hugely as well as literature. The generally considered
turning point in his life, when he decided to write to give a vehicle
to his demons of brought about through wrestling drugs and sexual
indifference, was when he shot his wife Joan Vollmer in a game of
William Tell in a party at a bar in Mexico where he was hiding out with
his family away from charges in America. He subsequently ended up in
Tangiers, Morocco and ended up pen his masterpiece, Naked lunch.