Dead Fingers Talk

A newly edited edition of Dead Fingers Talk, the most commercial and accessible works by William S. Burroughs. Publication to mark 70 years of Calder Publications

This newly edited edition of Dead Fingers Talk, based on the restored text of the novel, will delight all Burroughs fans and lovers of experimental literature, and offer a new insight into the artistic process of one of the most original and influential writers of the twentieth century.First published in 1963 and representing Burroughs’s literary breakthrough in the UK, Dead FingersTalk is, in the words of Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris, “a prophetic work of haunting power”, and is perhaps the most commercial and accessible of his works. Combining new material with selections from Naked Lunch and his cut-up novels The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded, the book is also a fascinating precursor to remix and mash-up forms in art and music, which owe much to Burroughs’s influence. This newly edited edition of Dead Fingers Talk, based on the restored text of the novel, will delight all Burroughs fans and lovers of experimental literature, and offer a new insight into the artistic process of one of the most original and influential writers of the twentieth century.