A Grenade With the Fuse Lit: William S. Burroughs and Retroactive Utopias in Cities of the Red Night

In 1981, William S. Burroughs—often considered a writer of devastatingly apocalyptic dystopian vision—published “Cities of the Red Night,” his first foray into utopian writing. This article examines Burroughs’s conception of the “retroactive utopia.” It highlights Burroughs’s ambivalence toward utop...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Utopian studies 2010-01, Vol.21 (1), p.118-138
Main Author: Grattan, Sean
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:In 1981, William S. Burroughs—often considered a writer of devastatingly apocalyptic dystopian vision—published “Cities of the Red Night,” his first foray into utopian writing. This article examines Burroughs’s conception of the “retroactive utopia.” It highlights Burroughs’s ambivalence toward utopian projects and invokes both his hope and his disappointment in the ability for utopian writing to engender political change.
ISSN:1045-991X
2154-9648
DOI:10.5325/utopianstudies.21.1.0118