A Grenade With the Fuse Lit: William S. Burroughsand Retroactive Utopias inCities 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: Sean Grattan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Communities
Grenades
Narratives
Pirates
Political revolutions
Ships
Utopian fiction
Utopianism
Utopias
Written narratives
Online Access:Get full text
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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