I found this glowing review of Who was Sinclair Beiles? on Goodreads today: I certainly could not have asked for more!
Thank you, Mat!
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An excellent 'festschrift' (or 'celebration'), rather than a strict biography, on the mysterious South African beat writer, Sinclair Beiles.
Beiles is probably most famous for helping Burroughs get Naked Lunch published at Olympia through Girodias, at a time when Burroughs was really strung out on paregoric and/or heroin. His most famous work in print is probably as one of the four contributors (Beiles, Burroughs, Corso & Gysin) of the now legendary cut-up compilation, Minutes to Go, published in 1960.
However, as this book illustrates, Beiles is [sic] quite a prolific poet and playwright and apart from the above two works, much of his writing has surfaced 'under the radar' and hasn't been the subject of much attention by either critics or fellow poets and writers. Beiles is someone whose quality of writing is as notoriously inconsistent as it is hard to track down and read his books in the first place.
One of his books of poetry, Yeoville, for example, was only published in a limitation of 4 copies.
What Beiles has in common with Burroughs is their meeting in Tangier and in Paris, an interest in drugs, an interest in experimental artists and writers and also, interestingly, a regular allowance from their families which allowed them both to focus much time on their writing.
I hope this book goes some way to revealing more about this great writer to the literary world. His poetry and plays have been criminally neglected and underrated and it is high time that his work is evaluated alongside many of the other great beat writers who are already firmly and undeniably well ensconced in the beat cannon and annals of history (in particular Burroughs, Kerouac and Ginsberg).
Gary Cummiskey and Eva Kowalska have done a terrific job of compiling these (mostly flattering) articles on Sinclair and his art. This is the best introduction to a little-known artist.
If you can obtain a copy, I recommend getting the second edition which is revised and expanded and contains an excellent bibliography-in-progress of Beiles' works in print.
What Beiles has in common with Burroughs is their meeting in Tangier and in Paris, an interest in drugs, an interest in experimental artists and writers and also, interestingly, a regular allowance from their families which allowed them both to focus much time on their writing.
I hope this book goes some way to revealing more about this great writer to the literary world. His poetry and plays have been criminally neglected and underrated and it is high time that his work is evaluated alongside many of the other great beat writers who are already firmly and undeniably well ensconced in the beat cannon and annals of history (in particular Burroughs, Kerouac and Ginsberg).
Gary Cummiskey and Eva Kowalska have done a terrific job of compiling these (mostly flattering) articles on Sinclair and his art. This is the best introduction to a little-known artist.
If you can obtain a copy, I recommend getting the second edition which is revised and expanded and contains an excellent bibliography-in-progress of Beiles' works in print.
Read the original post.
