J. G. Ballard on William S. Burroughs

British novelist on 'upper-class Midwesterner' Burroughs

William S. Burroughs

Biblioklept quotes an 1984 interview with British novelist J. G. Ballard, where he relates his admiration for Beat writer William S. Burroughs: 'I have met Burroughs quite a few times over the last fifteen years, and he always strikes me as an upper-class Midwesterner, with an inherent superior attitude towards blacks, policemen, doctors, and small-town politicians, the same superior attitude that Swift had to their equivalents in his own day, the same scatological obsessions and brooding contempt for middle-class values, thrift, hard work, parenthood, et cetera, which are just excuses for petit-bourgeois greed and exploitation. But I admire Burroughs more than any other living writer, and most of those who are dead.' [Read more]

Source: 'JG Ballard on William Burroughs', Biblioklept, 25 September 2010

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Browsing the J. G. Ballard archives
• Will Self on Burroughs and Junky
• The Cat Inside: William Burroughs
• William Burroughs' Belongings
• William Burroughs and Susan Sontag on meeting Beckett
• 'The Ugly Spirit': Burroughs and the Naked Lunch
• Inmate in the cosmic madhouse: J. G. Ballard on Burroughs
• Naked Lunch: The Fiftieth Anniversary