Can I read The Yage Letters on EtoBox?

The Yage Letters by William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg is a work of fiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is The Yage Letters about?

The Yage Letters: an early epistolary novel by William S. Burroughs, whose 1952 account of himself as Junkie, published under the pseudonym William Lee, ended "Yage may be the final fix." In letters to Allen Ginsberg, an unknown young poet in New York, his journey to the Amazon jungle is recorded, detailing picaresque incidents of search for telepathic-hallucinogenic-mind-expanding drug Yage (Ayahuasca, or Banisteriopsis Caapé) used by Amazon Indian doctors for finding lost objects, mostly bodies and souls. Author and recipient of these letters met again in New York, Xmas 1953, pruned and edited the writings to form a single book. Correspondence contains first seeds of later Burroughsian fantasy in Naked Lunch. Seven years later Ginsberg in Peru writes his old guru an account of his own visions and terrors with the same drug, appealing for further counsel. Burroughs' mysterious reply is sent. The volume concludes with two epilogues: a short note from Ginsberg on his return from the Orient years later reassuring Self that he is still here on earth, and a final poetic cut-up by Burroughs, "I Am Dying Meester?"

Who reads The Yage Letters?

Author

William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg

Publisher

City Lights Books (San Francisco)

Published

2018

Language

EN

ISBN

9780872860049

Category

work of fiction

Subjects

Literary Fiction, Fiction, Memoir

Rating

3.7 / 5 (2,703 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-13