Writers in the Library presents RB Morris, the University of Tennessee Libraries Jack E. Reese writer in residence on Monday, November 12 at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of Hodges Library. The event is free and open to the public.

Morris will read his essay from The Naked Lunch at 50, an anthology published in honor of the 50th anniversary of William S. Burrough’s seminal work.

The Naked Lunch, first published in Paris in 1959, was extremely controversial in both its subject matter and obscene language. Banned in many regions of the United States, The Naked Lunch was the last major literary censorship battle in the U.S. court system, wherein the Appeals Court of Massachusetts found that the book did not violate obscenity statues.

The Naked Lunch is a satire and social criticism of America’s consumerist post World War II society. The book is written in a non-linear, non-chronological style, where Burroughs sliced phrases and words to create new sentences.

The Naked Lunch at 50, edited by Oliver Harris and Ian MacFayden will be published by the Southern Illinois University Press, forthcoming 2009.

The Writers in the Library series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Creative Writing Program of the UT English Department. For further information, please contact Jo Anne Deeken, head of technical services, UT Libraries, at 974-6905 or jdeeken@utk.edu, or R.B. Morris, Jack E. Reese writer in residence, UT Libraries, at 974-3004 or rbmorris@utk.edu.