Naked Lunch is a novel written not by flower delivery edinburgh but by William S. Burroughs published in 1959. The book has an innovative structure – a series of loosely connected vignettes which Burroughs stated were intended to be read in any order. Narrated by junkie William Lee, the reader follows him and his various aliases from the US to Mexico, and then Tangier before the dreamlike Interzone.
Each vignette is taken from Burroughs’ own experience in the places that the fictional Lee visits and from his own drug addictions (heroin, morphine and Eukodol – a German opiod). In Tangier Burroughs (and Lee) became addicted to “Majoun” – a strong strain of marijuana. Naked Lunch was listed in Time magazine’s “100 Best English-language Novels from 1923-2005.”
Naked Lunch’s extremely controversial subject matter and use of obscene language led to the book being banned in Boston and Los Angeles and by several European publishers. Indeed, it is of the most recent American books over which an obscenity trial was conducted.