Brion Gysin Books In Order

Novels

Exterminator! (1960)
The Process (1969)
The Last Museum (1986)

Collections

The Third Mind (1978)
Back in No Time (1981)
Stories (1984)

Non fiction

Living with Islam (2010)

Novels Book Covers

Collections Book Covers

Non fiction Book Covers

Living with Islam
(2010)

Brion Gysin Books Overview

Exterminator!

A man, dispirited by ageing, endeavours to steal a younger man’s face; a doctor yearns for a virus that might eliminate his discomfort by turning everyone else into doubles of himself; a Colonel lays out the precepts of the life of DE Do Easy; conspirators posthumously succeed in blowing up a train full of nerve gas; a mandrill known as the Purple Better One runs for the presidency with brutal results; and the world drifts towards apocalypses of violence, climate and plague. The hallucinatory landscape of William Burroughs compellingly bizarre, fragmented novel is constantly shifting, something sinister always just beneath the surface.

The Process

The Process has the dazzling impact of a drug inspired dream and, since its publication more than thirty years ago, has established itself as a classic of twentieth century modernism. Ulys O. Hanson, an African American professor of the History of Slavery, who is in North Africa on a mysterious foundation grant, sets off across the Sahara on a series of wild adventures. He first meets Hamid, a mad Moroccan who turns him on, takes him over and teaches him to pass as a Moor. Mya, the richest woman in creation, and her seventh husband, the hereditary Bishop of the Farout Islands, also cross his path with their plans to steal the Sahara and make the stoned professor the puppet Emperor of Africa.

Back in No Time

Brion Gysin 1916 1986 was a multifaceted artist whose fertile mind and wide range of original ideas were a source of inspiration for artists of the Beat Generation in Paris, as well as to innovative artists and performers such as David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Keith Haring, and Laurie Anderson in the next generation. Painter, writer, sound poet, tape composer, lyricist, and performance artist, Gysin is remembered particularly for his evocative paintings of the North African desert in the 1950s and his original calligraphic abstractions based on Japanese and Arabic scripts. The chance discovery by Gysin of the cut up technique later developed and refined by William S. Burroughs and the concept of permutated poems gave rise to new and original forms of sound art wordplay, striking not only in print but also in recordings or live performance. Gysin’s inventive ideas also extended to the Dreamachine and to collages of text and photographs. This is the first comprehensive publication on Gysin’s achievements. It features reproductions of his paintings and graphics as well as examples of his permutated poems and other writings. Complete with first hand reminiscences by his contemporaries, it generates the sense of excitement and experimentation that so captivated all who knew this remarkable artistic pioneer. 245 illustrations, 200 in color. With contributions by: Guy Brett, William S. Burroughs, Mohammed Choukri, Gregory Corso, Gladys C. Fabre, John Grigsby Geiger, John Giorno, Bruce Grenville, Bernard Heidsieck, Felicity Mason, Barry Miles, and Nicholas Zurbrugg.

Living with Islam

This recently discovered manuscript from Gysin, written in 1952, is as relevant today or more so than when it was written. A superb account of the intricacies and philosophy of Muslims and the Islamic world.