William Burroughs, Port of Saints

Michael Sean Bolton (Independent Scholar - North America)

Ed. by Christopher Hugh Gair, University of Glasgow
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1973

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Autobiography (literary)
Novel

Resources

William Burroughs’s 1980 novel Port of Saints (a substantial revision of the novel first published in 1973) predominantly serves as a continuation and elaboration of the utopian mythology he introduces in The Wild Boys. The Wild Boy community consists of a multicultural group of adolescent boys who stage a revolution against what Burroughs views as a matriarchal mainstream society. The Wild Boys, often depicted wearing nothing but jockstraps and roller skates and carrying knives, eschew all contact with women and reproduce through an asexual process that endows them with various psychic and/or supernatural abilities. These special abilities are a part of the Wild Boys’ arsenal of weapons to be used against the CIA, the …

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1373 words

Citation: Bolton, Michael Sean. "Port of Saints". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 October 2011 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2612, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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