Sinclair Beiles (b.

Kampala Kampala (, ) is the capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,680,000 and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division, and Ruba ...

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...

, 1930 - 2000,

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

) was a South African

beat poet The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatione ...

and editor for

Maurice Girodias Maurice Girodias (12 April 1919 – 3 July 1990) was a French publisher who founded the Olympia Press, specialising in risqué books, censored in Britain and America, that were permitted in France in English-language versions only. It evol ...

at the

Olympia Press Olympia Press was a Paris-based publisher, launched in 1953 by Maurice Girodias as a rebranded version of the Obelisk Press he inherited from his father Jack Kahane. It published a mix of erotic fiction and avant-garde literary fiction, and is b ...

in Paris. He developed along with

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

and Brion Gysin the cut-up technique of writing poetry and literature. Beiles was involved with American beat poets

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

Gregory Corso Gregory Nunzio Corso (March 26, 1930 – January 17, 2001) was an American poet and a key member of the Beat movement. He was the youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers (with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burrou ...

and Brion Gysin, and Burroughs at the legendary Beat Hotel in Paris. The photographer Harold Chapman recorded this period in his book ''The Beat Hotel'' (Gris Banal, 1984). He co-authored ''Minutes to Go'' with Burroughs, Gysin and Corso (Two Cities Editions, 1960). Beiles helped edit Burroughs' ''

Naked Lunch ''Naked Lunch'' (sometimes ''The Naked Lunch'') is a 1959 novel by American writer William S. Burroughs. The book is structured as a series of loosely connected vignettes, intended by Burroughs to be read in any order. The reader follows the na ...

''. He worked with the Greek artist Takis and read his magnetic manifesto -- "I am a sculpture... I would like to see all nuclear bombs on Earth turned into sculptures"—in 1962 in Paris at the

Iris Clert Gallery The Iris Clert Gallery (''Galerie Iris Clert'' in French) was an art gallery named after its Greek owner and curator, Iris Clert. The single-room gallery The Iris Clert Gallery (Galerie'' Iris Clert'' in French) was an art gallery named after its ...

. At this event he was famously suspended in mid-air by a magnetic field from a powerful magnet in a sculpture developed by Takis. Beiles attributed his subsequent mental instability to this experience even though he insisted that Takis provide him with a helmet to protect his head from the magnetic field. Beiles wandered through Europe, including a spell in London and settled in the Greek islands during the 1970s. He fought frequent bouts of depression, mental illness and drug addiction. He was married to the South African poet and artist Marta Proctor. In later life he returned to South Africa and was associated with the Johannesburg-based Gallery II

group of poets, writers, composers and performance artists and lived in the central and artistic district of

Yeoville Yeoville is an inner city neighbourhood of Johannesburg, in the province of Gauteng, South Africa. It is located in Region F (previously Region 8). It is widely known and celebrated for its diverse, pan-African population but notorious for it ...

. He and the South African columnist and playwright Ian Fraser formed a friendship which lasted many years. The poet had a burst of writing activity from 1991 to 2000, publishing a large number of poetry collections, including ''A South African Abroad'' (Lapis Press, 1991). He died in relative poverty. The independent filmmaker Anton Kotze made a short film called "Sacred Fix" (26 minutes, South Africa, 1997), which is a documentary portrait of Sinclair Beiles. A collection of writings about Sinclair Beiles called ''Who was Sinclair Beiles?'' was published by Dye Hard Press, Johannesburg, in 2009, co-edited by Gary Cummiskey and Eva Kowalska.

Works by Sinclair Beiles

*(S. B. as) Wu Wu Ming: ''Houses of Joy''.

, Paris, 1959. *S. B., William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Gregory Corso: ''Minutes To Go''. Two Cities Editions, Paris 1960 *''Ashes of Experience''. Wurm, 1969 *''Deliria''. Cold Turkey Press, Rotterdam 1971. Edited by Gerard Bellaart. *''Tales: Poems''. Gryphon Poets, 1972 *''Sacred Fix''. Cold Turkey Press, Rotterdam, 1975 *''Universal Truths as Revealed in White Tobacco Fumes''. Writers Forum, London. 1976. *''Ballets'', 1978 *''Dowsings'', 1980 *''Poems Under Suspicion, Poems On Bits Of Paper'' (with Marta Proctor) 1982 *''The Crucifixion'', Two Cities, 1984 *''A South African Abroad'', Lapis Press, 1991 *''On-Stage'', Limited Editions, 1994 *''Aardvark City, or Hieronymous Hotel'', Limited Editions, 1994 *''Khakiweeds'', Limited Editions, 1995 *''Deliria''. Small Spaces Press, 1995. First edition: Cold Turkey Press, Rotterdam, 1971. *''Yeoville: Poems'', Nugget Press, 1996 *''Sugar'', Nugget Press, 1996 *''Plays'' (''Harlem King of the Negroes''; ''My Brother Frederico''; ''Chopin in Majorca''), Nugget Press, 1996 *''The Greek Plays'' (''Electra''; ''Punch and Judy''; ''Genesis''; ''Mme Sausolito''), Nugget Press 1996 *''3 Plays'' (Picasso by Max Jacob; Suzanne Valedon; Colette), Nugget Press, 1996 *''The Golden Years'', Nugget Press, 1997 *''Nagmaal'', Nugget Press, 1997 *''Bicycle Tales'', Nugget Press, 1997 *''Springtime at Raubenheimers'', Nugget Press, 1998 *''Women'', Nugget Press 2000 *''A Jew Takes A Look At Guatemala'', Nugget Press, 2000 *''The Idiot's Voice'', Cold Turkey Press 2012 *''Bone Hebrew'', Cold Turkey Press 2013

External links

*Beat Bits

*The Beat Hotel, Barry Miles, *Beat Hotel Tribute

*Beiles article at Empty Mirror- ¨Sinclair Beiles: A Man Apart¨

* Harold Chapman Beat Hotel photos

*James de Villiers & Gallery II

*Photo Of Gallery II

*Poetry Links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beiles, Sinclair 1930 births 2002 deaths South African male poets Beat Generation writers People from Kampala People from Johannesburg 20th-century South African poets South African expatriates in France 20th-century South African male writers