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From Publishers Weekly ---------------------- This epistolary novel, first published in 1963, is actually a fascinating travel log written mostly by Burroughs of a trip he made to Peru and Colombia in 1953 to track down the legendary yage vine (also called ayahuasca), valued among the Indians for its telepathic and anesthetic powers. After a padding of manuscript history from scholar Oliver Harris (The Letters of William S. Burroughs), we find Burroughs writing to Ginsberg, his mostly harrowing, occasionally enlightening experiments with the drug, as well as his experiences picking up stray boys and eluding nosy officials. The second half of the book, dated seven years later, contains letters and poems from Ginsberg to Burroughs from the same region and, in turn, record Ginsberg's more intensely spiritual trips ("visit the moon, see the dead, see God"). When not violently poisoned by the drug, Burroughs attained wild, beautifully rendered hallucinations of the "Composite City," and his reflections on the corruption of government and the insidious spread of disease prove haunting and masterly. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Read more ( javascript:void(0) ) Review ------ " . . . incredible new edition of Yage Letters . . . " -- RealityStudio.org, April 2006 "Albeit unusual but still a solid addition to the Beat canon." -- Library Journal, March 2006 "For readers and aficionados of Beat history this new edition is something of a gem." -- Beat Scene Magazine, Summer 2006 "new edition of the book . . . places it more centrally in the list of key Burroughs texts." -- The Independent, UK, May 2006 "understanding the literary legacy of Burroughs and Ginsberg is impossible without reading this amazing collection of letters and documents" -- Bloomsbury Review, July/August 2006 Read more ( javascript:void(0) ) See all Editorial Reviews ( /dp/product-description/0872864480/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books&isInIframe=0 )