Aug 28, 2009 12:00 pm US/Central
'Naked Lunch' Turns 50, Fans To Celebrate
Th!nkArt Gallery Hosts Celebration Of William S. Burroughs' Beat Novel
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Beat Generation author William S. Burroughs
CBS
Stars of the art and counterculture world are gathering in the Wicker Park neighborhood Friday evening for a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the epochal novel Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs.
The celebration gets underway at 5:30 p.m. Friday at the Th!nkArt Salon, at 1530 N. Paulina St.
The event will feature appearances by Peter Weller, who starred as Naked Lunch protagonist William Lee in the 1991 movie adaptation of the novel, along with performance artist John Giorno, onetime Andy Warhol confidante Penny Arcade, and University of Illinois at Chicago education professor and 2008 news item Bill Ayers.
The event will feature screening of the trailer for a new documentary, "William Burroughs: A Man Within," and an "evening of art, readings, happenings and performances." The event will also feature gourmet food from local chef and Morpho Gallery owner David Leigh, and music by Minnesota singer and violinist Anni Rossi, and jazz bassist Maya Jensen.
An after-party follows at 9:30 p.m. at the Stop Smiling Storefront, 1371 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Tickets for the event are $60 online and $75 at the door.
Naked Lunch was released in Paris in 1959 and in the United States three years later. It takes the reader through a non-linear, surreal narrative of a heroin addict's life.
The coarse language and frank depictions of drug use and homosexuality drew widespread controversy when the novel first came out.
Before it was first published as a full-length novel, the Chicago Review literary magazine at the University of Chicago published parts of it as a serial in its spring 1958 edition. That prompted the U of C administration to censor future editions of the magazine, and all but one of the editors resigned.
Chicago Review editors Paul Carroll and Irving Rosenthal later serialized parts of the novel in a new magazine they founded, Big Table, and ended up being convicted of mailing obscene material.
The book was also banned in Boston upon its release as a full-length book in 1962, although that decision was later overturned.
Burroughs died in 1997.
More About The Naked Lunch Anniversary Celebration
More from Th!nkArt Salon
More About "William S. Burroughs: A Man Within"
History Of The Chicago Review And Its Censorship Of Naked Lunch
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