William Burroughs: El Hombre Invisible

William Burroughs has influenced not just the literary world but the whole realm of popular culture. He invented the term heavy metal, and was the inspiration behind bands as diverse as Steely Dan and Duran Duran. He was notorious for his homosexuality (among his lovers and long-term friends was the poet Allen Ginsberg) and his drug use, and for the bizarre killing of his wife in a notorious shooting accident in Mexico.