On the Trail of Beatnik Writer, William Burroughs, in Mexico City

William Burroughs was an American writer born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1914. He was a primary figure of the Beat Generation, a literary movement that emerged in the 1950s, primarily in the United States, characterised by its rejection of mainstream American culture and values, and its exploration of alternative lifestyles and perspectives.

They expressed their alienation from conventional society through unconventional writing styles and a focus on personal experience, often involving drug use.

Writers of the Beat Generation, known as Beatniks.

Famous Beatniks:

Jack Kerouac: Probably the most well-known Beatnik, author of the seminal novel, On the Road.
Allen Ginsberg: Known for his powerful and often controversial works like “Howl,” which critiqued American society and celebrated nonconformity.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Poet and publisher who founded City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, a hub for Beatniks.
Neal Cassady: Cassady is recognized as the inspiration behind Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. The character Dean Moriarty is closely modeled after Cassady, who journeyed across the U.S. with Kerouac.
William Burroughs: Author of Junkie, Naked Lunch, Cities of the Red Light, and The Place of Dead Roads.

Photos of Junky (Penguin Books published this uncensored version of the novel with the alternate spelling “Junky” in 1977) and Naked Lunch. Both of which can be found in Gandhi, which has the biggest selection of English-language books in Mexico.

Evading gun and drug charges in the US, Burroughs fled to Mexico City in 1949, settling in the bohemian district of Roma Norte.

He lived with his second wife, Jean Vollmer, in a small apartment, number 37 in what is now Calle Jose Alvarado. He also shared the apartment with Jack Kerouac. The buildings at numbers 33, 35 and 37 have since been pulled down and replaced with modern housing (behind the trees).

Kerouac, Burroughs, Cassady and Ginsberg et al, all stayed at some point at an apartment (original building demolished after the 1984 earthquake) located at Orizaba 210:

.. where Kerouac wrote parts of Mexico City Blues and Burroughs, much of Queer:

The shooting of Jean Vollmer

On a boozy night in 1951, Burroughs, Vollmer and other expats were gathered at Monterrey 122:

..at an apartment owned by John Healy, an American scholarship student.

The flat at Monterrey 122, seen below on the left of the photo, to the right of the smaller tree, was reportedly above the Bounty Bar.

These days, Krika’s on the corner of Monterrey and Chihuahua gets the credit for being the Bounty Bar, where the Beatnik writers used to gather. And also being the La Casa de William S. Burroughs:

This was a period when they were all high on heroin or whatever else they took. And so, the story goes, Burroughs is showing off his shooting skills to his friends. He gets Jean Vollmer to place a glass on her head, William Tell-style. He misses the glass, shooting his wife in the head.

Burroughs later changes his story, saying that he dropped the gun, and it went off, firing the lethal shot.

Burroughs claimed that if it weren’t for the shooting of his wife, he would never have made it as a writer. Author’s comment: The guy was a fucking nutter!

His novel, “Queer”, is based on his life and was finally published in 1985. It was adapted into a movie in 2024, starring Daniel Craig.

Breakfast at Krika’s

Whatever the story is with the Bounty Bar and the true location, they do a cracking breakfast at Krika’s.

Enjoying “Commercial” and “Rancheros” with coffee and juice included:

Later, inspired by Paul Bowles, Burroughs left for Tangier in November 1954. He spent the next four years there working on the fiction that would later become Naked Lunch. The Gran Café de Paris, which I visited in 2023, was a regular haunt of Bowles and Burroughs.