William S. Burrough’s work was vilified by conservatives and banned by the U.S. government, but emerged to influence artists for generations to come.

An iconoclast who himself became an icon, William Burroughs explored the outer boundaries of culture and identity in the 1950s. His work was vilified by conservatives and banned by the U.S. government, but emerged to influence artists for generations to come. Burroughs' friends and colleagues remember the public persona and the private man. By Yony Leyser