“… and I said, ‘K.E. let’s get right back on that ferry’” (12). What do the initials stand for? This is one of Naked Lunch’s more straightforward minor mysteries: K.E. — who also features in the Salesman routine in “Ordinary Men and Women” — was Burroughs’ long-standing friend, Kells Elvins, who was living in Denmark in the mid-1950s — which is why they were on the Malmö ferry together in the first place.

Burroughs visited Elvins and his wife Mimi in Copenhagen (just across the Oresund strait from Malmö) from late July to early September 1957, his first letter written from there to Ginsberg opening with the ominous words: “Here in Freelandt” (Letters 361). The “Freeland Republic” features mainly in the “Benway” section (and briefly in “The Examination”), representing Scandinavia as a welfare state nightmare — which is why Lee and K.E. get right back on that ferry.

(Text: Oliver Harris)

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