"Identity Express" by Udo Breger (1979)
Melano, Switzerland: Caos Press (Book), 1979.
7.375" x 4.875" x 0.5", 120 pages, softcover.
Identity Express by Udo Breger, an English-language novel of memories of friends and associates, with photographs in the center [including images of William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Allen Ginsberg, and others], a "Ticker Tape" text by Jürgen Ploog running through the book, and a blurb by Burroughs on the back cover.
Udo Breger "is a German author, translator and publisher with close ties to the Beat Generation. Breger studied English and Romance Language & Literature at the University of Göttingen from 1964 to 1971, during which period he also ran an art gallery in Göttingen. Between 1968 and 1975 his Expanded Media Editions published and organised projects with Joseph Beuys, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Allen Ginsberg, Brion Gysin, William Burroughs and others. In the mid-1970s Breger translated Robert Shea’s and Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus! Trilogy for Sphinx Verlag, Basel. With the exception of a couple of years spent in Sweden, Breger has since then worked in Basel as a publicist and translator of works by Walt Whitman, Alan Watts, John Lilly, William Burroughs, Franco Beltrametti and others for various publishing houses including his own. During his stays in the USA between 1978 and 1992 he met Andy Warhol, Herbert Huncke and Buckminster Fuller to mention some of his many overseas friends and acquaintances. Breger’s Expanded Media Editions and his magazine Soft Need has published works by cut-up artists Jürgen Ploog, Carl Weissner, Jörg Fauser, William Burroughs and Brion Gysin as well as works by Allen Ginsberg, Claude Pélieu and Gerard Malanga. Together with Axel Heil and Peter Weibel, Breger curated the exhibition ‘The Name is Burroughs‘ in ZKM Karlsruhe and the Sammlung Falckenberg, Hamburg in 2012." [from the Sea Urchin page for the revised edition].
This copy is one of 550 original edition copies, of which 50 were signed and numbered. This is not one of the 50 copies, but was inscribed by Udo Breger to "Gunter" in 1980 -- there is a photograph of a Gunter in the book, and it is not currently known if this is the same individual or not.
This copy was acquired from Buddenbooks Lübeck (Lübeck, Germany).
Shoaf II.148
- Sea Urchin: Udo Breger – Identity Express
- Prague Writer's Festival: On Udo Breger
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