Comments on: 1962 International Writers’ Conference

By: Angela Bartie

Angela Bartie — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:18:06 +0000

Hello
I am based in History at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow, Scotland) and have worked on the Writers’ Conference of 1962 as part of a bigger research project on the Edinburgh Festivals in the post-war period. Eleanor Bell, my colleague in English Studies (who has also worked on the Writer’s Conference of 1962), and I are organising two events and a publication to mark the 50th anniversary of this conference, due to take place in Edinburgh in 2012.
We are interested in hearing from anyone who has any more information about the Writers’ Conference from a US perspective, particularly Burrough’s participation in the conference.
Many thanks in advance for your help.

By: Bill Peschel

Bill Peschel — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:58:38 +0000

Here you go. Just found this at a site called “Books and Visuals”. It’s a transcript of the conference, found in an online auction catalog:

28. (BURROUGHS): International Writers Conference: Edinburgh 1962. No printing details. Transcript of the International Writers Conference that ran from the 20-24th August, 1962 and included such luminaries as Norman Mailer, Colin McInnes, Henry Miller, Alexander Trocchi, Mary Mccarthy and a host of others, (over 70 writers including William Burroughs). Burroughs career was effectively launched by his participation. The conference was held to address the question “How does the novel form stand today?” The conference didn’t get off to the greatest of starts when Hugh MacDiarmid famously denounced Trocchi and his work as “cosmopolitan scum.” Burroughs’ novel, Naked Lunch came under attack and was famously defended by Mary Mccarthy, and Norman Mailer declared Burroughs the “only American novelist living today
who may conceivably be possessed by genius.” Following on from the conference, Naked Lunch stirred up the longest running correspondence in the Times Literary Supplement as critics and public ranted, raved and did everything but agree on the values and qualities of the work. The critical controversy, however, has established Naked Lunch as a seminal post-war work that must be continually read and re-evaluated regardless of the personal tastes of individual critics. A very good plus example of this important document. Approx. 140 pages printed on rectos only. Scarce we have only ever seen one other example and that was incomplete. Â£450

By: Rainer Hawlik

Rainer Hawlik — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 09:42:25 +0000

Hi,

I just wanted to let you know that Dutch writer Gerard Reve was invited at the festival, wrote about the congress in his book “Op weg naar het einde”, which is quite famous in Dutch literature after 1945.

The letters in “On My Way to the End” shocked Dutch readers of 1963 with their complete lack of taboo and shameless frankness. In the opening “Letter from Edinburgh” – 49 pages in paperback – , Reve talks about attending a writers’ congress in the Scottish capital and describes his anger on discovering that certain topics there, particularly homosexuality and sodomy, were considered beyond the pale. “As a homosexual,” Reve wrote, “I will never let anyone forbid me from making homosexuality the subject of my work.’ He spent the rest of his creative life making this clear.

Angus Wilson drove with Reve in his car to Edinburgh.
Reve was very sceptically about Cut up by Burroughs. In the letter he describes encounters with Fried, McCarthy, Mailer.

Reve died in 2006.

please compare:
http://www.productiefonds.nl/book/book2.php?Book=415

all the best,
rainer