Sea Urchin Editions

26/11/2025

in stock from Moloko Plus:

OLIVER HARRIS - ONE SHOT: A BEAT GENERATION MYSTERY

Published by Moloko Plus, Schönebeck, 2024. Language: English. Cover photo: Oliver Harris. Design: Robert Schalinski.
€ 20,00

Analysing the only existing photograph that captures in one frame the three protagonists of the Beat Generation – William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg – Oliver Harris unravels its background, origin and context and debunks several earlier stories about this iconic Beat document. Along lines of semiotics and psychoanalysis paired with gumshoe perseverance, Harris expertly guides the reader through a wilderness of details, stories, references and personal disclosures only to find that… yes, what? Captivating and beautifully written, ‘One Shot’ is a surprising reflection of Professor Harris’s long and meticulous research of the Beats and Burroughs in particular.

Oliver Harris’s life as a Burroughsian began in 1984 with a PhD at Oxford that nobody would supervise. He has since gone on to publish twenty books about and by Burroughs, including William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination and new editions of three Burroughs trilogies: ‘Junky’, ‘Queer’, ‘The Yage Letters redux’; restored editions of ‘Nova Express’, ‘The Soft Machine’ and ‘The Ticket That Exploded’; and ‘Minutes to Go Redux’, ‘The Exterminator Redux’ and BATTLE INSTRUCTIONS – as well as ‘Everything Lost: The Latin American Notebook of William S. Burroughs’, ‘The Poetics of Minutes to Go’, ‘Making Naked Lunch: Two Appetisers’, ‘Blade Runner: A Movie’ and ‘Dead Fingers Talk: The Restored Text’. In 2023 he co-authored ‘Two Assassins: William Burroughs/Hassan Sabbah’ with the Iranian writer Farid Ghadami. He is Professor Emeritus of American Literature at Keele University, England, President of the European Beat Studies Network and the proud father of Ella, Mia, Nina and Vivi.

https://www.sea-urchin.net/books/moloko-books/oliver-harris-one-shot-a-beat-generation-mystery/

new arrival from Moloko Plus:

OLIVER HARRIS - ONE SHOT: A BEAT GENERATION MYSTERY

Published by Moloko Plus, Schönebeck, 2024. Language: English. Cover photo: Oliver Harris. Design: Robert Schalinski.
€ 20,00

”If you only know one photograph of the Beat Generation, you know this one. It’s the single most famous picture of Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Kerouac. But who took it, when, where, and why? What are its secrets, and how can it be a crime scene? Whatever you think you know is almost certainly wrong, so to unravel its mysteries and find out where all the bodies are buried, follow in the footsteps of the world’s most dedicated Burroughs scholar as he applies his forensic sleuthing skills to the image that defined the Beat Generation. Always fascinating, sometimes funny, occasionally dark, and with a twist ending, ‘One Shot’ is a page-turner, a hybrid of detective fiction, personal memoir, and endlessly obsessive scholarship. Or as Harris himself puts it: ‘Depending how you look at it, this is either a triumphant tour de force, a virtuoso performance of scholarly ingenuity and passion, or an indulgent self-parody, a reductio ad absurdum of academic work. I like to think it’s hard to tell the difference”.
(from the blurb of this edition)

Analysing the only existing photograph that captures in one frame the three protagonists of the Beat Generation – William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg – Oliver Harris unravels its background, origin and context and debunks several earlier stories about this iconic Beat document. Along lines of semiotics and psychoanalysis paired with gumshoe perseverance, Harris expertly guides the reader through a wilderness of details, stories, references and personal disclosures only to find that… yes, what? Captivating and beautifully written, ‘One Shot’ is a surprising reflection of Professor Harris’s long and meticulous research of the Beats and Burroughs in particular.

Oliver Harris’s life as a Burroughsian began in 1984 with a PhD at Oxford that nobody would supervise. He has since gone on to publish twenty books about and by Burroughs, including William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination and new editions of three Burroughs trilogies: ‘Junky’, ‘Queer’, ‘The Yage Letters redux’; restored editions of ‘Nova Express’, ‘The Soft Machine’ and ‘The Ticket That Exploded’; and ‘Minutes to Go Redux’, ‘The Exterminator Redux’ and BATTLE INSTRUCTIONS – as well as ‘Everything Lost: The Latin American Notebook of William S. Burroughs’, ‘The Poetics of Minutes to Go’, ‘Making Naked Lunch: Two Appetisers’, ‘Blade Runner: A Movie’ and ‘Dead Fingers Talk: The Restored Text’. In 2023 he co-authored ‘Two Assassins: William Burroughs/Hassan Sabbah’ with the Iranian writer Farid Ghadami. He is Professor Emeritus of American Literature at Keele University, England, President of the European Beat Studies Network and the proud father of Ella, Mia, Nina and Vivi.

https://www.sea-urchin.net/books/moloko-books/oliver-harris-one-shot-a-beat-generation-mystery/

25/11/2025

new arrival from Moloko+:

HERBST IN PEKING & !THE SAME - WELT DER WUNDER
(Reworks in dub by Alien Levi)

Audio CD released by Moloko+/Peking Records, 2025. 12 tracks, 65:44 min. Cover art: Christian Großkopf. Design: Kai Pohl.
€ 15,00

From the accompanying text:

‘Alien Levi, spaced-out dub producer from the interzone, has delved into the back catalogs of HERBST IN PEKING & !THE SAME, and the result is presented by Peking Records & Moloko Plus with the album Welt der Wunder (World of Wonders). In Levi’s magical hands, dub versions, remixes, and reinterpretations of well-known and lesser-known tracks from the last 10 years have emerged. Strictly dubwise, but not too orthodox. The lyrics are by Kai Pohl, Bert Papenfuß, and Rex Joswig. The music, as always, is hard to describe — something between deep industrial doom shanty and space dub from lost highways. Best listen for yourself. Dub it before it is dubbing you!’

Alien Levi, spaced-out dub producer from the interzone, has delved into the back catalogs of Herbst In Peking & !The Same, and the result is presented by Peking Records & Moloko Plus with the album ‘Welt der Wunder’ (World of Wonders).

23/11/2025

new arrival from Moloko+:

HERBST IN PEKING - FAUST AM MEER

Audio CD released by Moloko+ / Peking Records, 2025. 10 tracks, 38:17 min. Recorded & produced in East Berlin, 2024-25. Produced by Helmar von Brünn. Mastering: Alien Levi.
€ 15,00

Herbst In Peking, named after Boris Vian’s novel, was formed by Rex Joswig in East Berlin in 1987. The anti-authoritarian stance and fierce criticism of the GDR regime of this punk band led to an official ban in 1989. While Rex Joswig ran his Grenzpunkt Null radio show from East Berlin after the GDR had collapsed, his band steadily assimilated influences from Dub, Industrial and Electronic Music. HIP’s line-up has changed over the years with Joswig as a constant member and their collaboration with Moloko Plus productive to this day. For ‘Faust am Meer’ Herbst In Peking’s line-up consisted of Rex Joswig, King Snow (Torsten Füchsel) and Helmar Kreysig.

On their CD ‘Faust am Meer’ Herbst In Peking explores good and evil as two sides of the same medal. The line ‘Good is an evil Animal’ by HIP member Helmar Kreysig serves as a motto for this beautiful production, which was recorded in Cheetahs Cage, East-Berlin in 2024 and 2025. Other lines and lyrics in this vein are provided by Rex Joswig, Thomas Brasch, Rainer Maria Rilke and William Shakespeare. Sung, spoken and whispered by “living repetition machine” Rex Joswig and driven by HIP’s characteristic heavy beats and finely tuned electronica, ‘Faust am Meer’ takes you to the edge of the world, where Thomas Brasch sighs after Shakespeare: ‘I’ve just about had enough of the Sun / I wish this world were finally done’.

On their CD ‘Faust am Meer’ Herbst In Peking explores good and evil as two sides of the same medal. The line ‘Good is an evil Animal’ by HIP member Helmar Kreysig serves as a motto for this beautiful production, which was recorded in Cheetahs Cage, East-Berlin in 2024 and 2025.

20/11/2025

in stock:

ROGER KNOEBBER - HYSTERESIS: A PROFILE OF BRION GYSIN

Published by Inkblot and Theo Green in collaboration with LargerNovae, 2024. Edition of 300 copies. Forewords: Theo Green & Roger Knoebber. Layout: Tim Furman. Cover Design: Janet Galore. Cover photograph: Udo Breger.
€ 47,50

Hysteresis (physics): The continuation of an effect after its cause has been removed.

In the late 1950s in Paris, at the famed Beat Hotel – 9 rue Gît-le-Coeur – writer Roger Knoebber was living amongst a community of creative people, including the core of what became known as the Beat Generation – Burroughs, Corso, Ginsberg, and others. In this bohemian center of exploration Roger became intimate friends with the artist, writer and mystic Brion Gysin.

From the time that Roger left the Beat Hotel in 1962, through his time raising a family in California, his return to Paris in 1984, and until Gysin’s death in 1986, Roger and Brion maintained a friendship captured in letters. in 1996, ten years after Brion’s death, Roger completed writing ‘Hysteresis: A Profile of Brion Gysin’, a painting-in-words to capture Gysin’s complex personality and history. Within this text are recollections solicited by Roger from many of Brion’s friends and associates including William S. Burroughs, Terry Wilson, Felicity Mason, Françoise Janicot, Ramuntcho Matta and others.

In 2004, Roger Knoebber also passed away, with the manuscript left unpublished. Finally, nearly thirty years after it was written, Hysteresis is here, summoning up the spirit of Brion for us.
(From the blurb of this edition)

In the late 1950s in Paris, at the famed Beat Hotel – 9 rue Gît-le-Coeur – writer Roger Knoebber was living amongst a community of creative people, including the core of what became known as the Beat Generation – Burroughs, Corso, Ginsberg, and others. In this bohemian center of exploration R...

12/11/2025

in stock:

HAROLD NORSE - AUTOSTOP! (Hitching through Italy on $2 a Day)

Published by MOLOKO PLUS, 2024. Introduced by TODD SWINDELL. Language: English. Design: Michael Bulgrin.
€ 20,00

‘…I used to lie in my bedroom in New York City gazing with a kind of longing love-sickness at the tourist posters I had pinned to my walls. Amalfi was a giant conch shell sheltering in its mountainous side little white houses that clustered the cliffs to the sea. Les Hautes-Alpes was a moraine of snow, chalets and skis. Sicily was a maid of harvested fruits and musical instruments and a suggestive Corinthian column from a ruined Greek temple. How my imagination played upon those images as I heard, below my window, the Third Avenue E1 go roaring by!…’

In 1954 American poet HAROLD NORSE cycled south from Rome (where had been living since 1953) and from there hitch-hiked deeper south, along the coast of Sicily, back to the Italian mainland and up north again to Venice. Equipped with his Baedeker and no more than two dollars to spend each day of his trip, Norse’s idealised views of Italy and his knowledge of its ancient history clashed with everyday reality in the poverty-stricken regions of post-war Italy, where Americans were not greeted as liberators but as rich tourists waiting to be shaken down… Norse’s journal of his trip through Italy, remained unpublished until his friend TODD SWINDELL took it upon himself to have it published posthumously after Norse had died in 2009. Swindell not only recovered the manuscript but also edited it, cleaned it up, wrote an introduction and found a publisher in Ralf Friel’s Moloko+, who did a good job making it available to the public under the title Autostop!

Harold Norse was born Harold Rosen to a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant in 1916. After having graduated from Brooklyn College he became close friends with W.H. Auden (after the latter’s move to the USA in 1939) and William Carlos Williams, who helped publish Norse’s experimental and groundbreaking poems. In the early 1950s Norse got his master’s degree in literature from New York University and saw his first poetry compilation published. Norse lived in Italy in the second half of the 1950s and was a resident of the Beat Hotel in Paris with William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso from 1959 to 1963. After having moved to the Greek island of Hydra and Tangier, Norse returned to the US in 1968. The last 35 years of his life were spent in the Mission District of San Francisco. With his ‘Carnivorous Saint: Gay Poems 1941-1976’ and publications in magazines such as Gay Sunshine, Norse established himself as one of the leading gay liberation poets of his era.

On 6th July 1954, on the day of his 38th birthday, the American poet Harold Norse set off on an adventure across Italy. Best known for his contributions as a Beat poet, and later as a Gay Liberation poet, Norse travelled around Europe between 1953 and 1968, where he honed his craft as a poet and pic...

10/11/2025

New in the Sea Urchin catalogue:

VĂZ (Restored Cauls)

Published by Sea Urchin, 2025. Size: 155 x 110 x 5 mm. Pages: 24, Japanese bound Japanese papers. Language: English. Hand numbered edition of 15 copies.
€ 20,00

Pray
Brothers, to the Lord for us.
Like you’d pray for animals that have been stuffed.
(Dimitrie Stelaru – Song from the Mists)

Sea Urchin’s ‘Văz’ compiles nine watercolour portraits of people who were born with a caul (part of the amniotic sac wrapped around the baby’s head). In folklore around the world the rarely occurring cauls were considered omens of good fortune. ‘Caul bearers’ were also thought to possess supernatural powers and the ability to see ‘beyond the veil’, between this world and others. However, in Romanian folklore caul bearers were also doomed to become ‘strigoi’, undead. Văz is Romanian for ‘sight’.
Watercolours and design by Dutch artist Ben Schot.

https://www.sea-urchin.net/books/sea-urchin-books/vaz-restored-cauls/

10/11/2025

in stock:

VARIOUS CASSETTES IN THE TAPETOPIA SERIES, BERLIN.

tapetopia is a series of releases based on cassettes from East Germany’s 80s underground, particularly from the East Berlin Mauerstadt music scene, featuring original layouts and track lists. For over 30 years after their initial “release” the music on these tapes was neither available on vinyl nor CD, but they were important statements in the canon of the GDR subculture. Despite the miniscule number of original cassettes in circulation at the time many of the bands were popular in countercultural circles, a factor that made them highly suspect among the government’s own inner circles. tapetopia is run by Henryk Gericke. The cassettes are released on tapetopia & aufnahme + wiedergabe, Berlin.

30/10/2025

Sea Urchin distributes Ludo Mich.

28/10/2025

Part of Ben Schot's project ‘Văz’ is an upcoming Sea Urchin booklet containing all watercolours, (including the ones to come). Edition of 15. 15,5 x 11 cm, Japanese bound, € 20,00, appearing in the course of the next month. Here's a first test copy. If you're interested, let me know and I'll keep a copy for you.
*********

The project ‘Văz (Restored Cauls)’ consists of portraits of people who were born with a caul (part of the amniotic sac wrapped around the baby’s head). In folklore around the world the rarely occurring cauls were considered omens of good fortune. ‘Caul bearers’ were also thought to possess supernatural powers and the ability to see ‘beyond the veil’, between this world and others. However, in Romanian folklore caul bearers were doomed to become ‘strigoi’, undead… ‘Văz’ is Romanian for ‘sight’.

22/10/2025

Available from our Collectible catalogue:

GARY SNYDER - A RANGE OF POEMS

Hardcover published by Fulcrum Press, London, 1967. Second edition. Artwork: Gary Snyder & Will Petersen. Photography: Ken Walden. Design: Stuart Montgomery. Condition: Very good, slight discolouration of the page edges. Minor damage to the dust jacket.
€ 50,00

American poet, translator and environmentalist GARY SNYDER was born in San Francisco in 1930. After his parents had moved to Washington State and later to Oregon, Snyder discovered reading, poetry and the folklore of the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. He published his first poems during his time at Reed College, Portland and graduated with a dual degree in anthropology and literature in 1951. His experiences working summers as a hand in the timber industry were expressed in his poetry of the early 1950s. Having returned to his native San Francisco in 1952, Snyder studied Asian cultures and languages and began practising Zen. He read one of his poems at the famous 1955 poetry readings at the Six Gallery in San Francisco, which heralded the birth of the Beat Generation. But although there are all sorts of connections with the Beats, Snyder was never really part of that circle and rather thought of himself as belonging to the San Francisco Renaissance, which was spearheaded by Kenneth Rexroth. Snyder started studying Zen Buddhism in Kyoto, Japan in 1955, returned to California in 1958 and divided the next decade between Japan and California, writing poetry, translating and furthering his Zen studies. In 1970 he settled in Kitkitdizze, his property in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California. In the 1980s Snyder was appointed a professor at the University of California and became deeper involved in environmental issues. He has been awarded several prizes for his poetry and is held in high esteem as an environmental activist.

‘A Range of Poems’ compiles several of Snyder’s earlier works from ‘Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems’, ‘Myths & Texts’, translations of poems by Kenji Miyazawa and ‘The Back Country’. It was published in 1966 by Fulcrum Press, London, followed by a second edition one year later. This particular copy of the second edition from 1967 is in very good condition with only slight discolouration of the edges of the pages and minor damage to the dust jacket, which has a 42/- price sticker on its front flap.

Hardcover compilation published by Fulcrum Press, London. Second edition, 1967. Condition: very good with only slight discolouration of the edges of the pages and slight damage to the dust jacket.

21/10/2025

in stock from MOLOKO PLUS:

RICHARD BYRNE - HOTEL MAYFLOWER

English / German edition published by Moloko Plus, Schönebeck, 2024. German translation: Mark Kanak. Design: Ralf Zühlke.
€ 20,00

True story: Before finding fame as a writer, Beat Generation icon William Burroughs met a German Jewish woman named Ilse Herzfeld Klapper in Dubrovnik. A year later, in 1938, they married. Ilse Burroughs received a U.S. visa from this marriage, which allowed her to escape N**i Germany. She arrived in New York in 1939, where she worked for exiled anti-fascist German writer Ernst Toller. During his exile, Toller had become a leading figure in the anti-fascist resistance. He gave speeches, wrote articles, raised money for the hungry in Spain and even wrote film scripts in Hollywood. In his play ‘Hotel Mayflower’ Richard Byrne imagines how Toller, Herzfeld Klapper and Burroughs met and collided in a Manhattan hotel in 1939. Byrne’s ‘Hotel Mayflower’ is a fictitious world based on historical facts: a picture of exile and displacement amid growing fascism, and attempts to erase and rewrite history. Where does that leave the artist? As Byrne himself puts it: “Toller and Burroughs are at opposite poles in their views about writing and politics. And the story of Ilse Herzfeld Klapper Burroughs – polyglot, refugee, friend to the famous – is utterly enigmatic. ‘Hotel Mayflower’ was my opportunity to explore a tangle of key issues in our moment through the prism of a forgotten story of 1939 that should be better known.”

Richard Byrne writes plays and films. He is also an award-winning editor and journalist. His work has been published in places including Time, The Nation, The New Republic, The Baffler, BookForum, New York Press, The Wilson Quarterly, The Guardian, and The Washington Post. Byrne lives in Washington DC. His plays ‘Burn Your Bookes’ and ‘Nero/Pseudo’ have been produced in Prague and Washington DC. His new film, ‘The Drowned Girl’, has been screened in New York City and Washington DC. Moloko Plus has now published ‘Hotel Mayflower’ – originally titled ‘Three Suitcases’ – as a bilingual (English-German) edition with a German translation by Mark Kanak. Design: Ralf Zühlke.

In his play ‘Hotel Mayflower’ Richard Byrne imagines how Ernst Toller, Ilse Herzfeld Klapper and William Burroughs met and collided in a Manhattan hotel in 1939. Byrne’s ‘Hotel Mayflower’ is a fictitious world based on historical facts: a picture of exile and displacement amid growing fasc...

18/10/2025

Last available copy of:

ACE FARREN FORD - MEMOIRS FROM MONROVIA (and other delights)

Jointly published by Sea Urchin & Moloko Plus, 2017. Introduced by Ace Farren Ford. Design: Anneke Auer. Limited edition of 120.
€ 15,00

For most of his life, Ace Farren Ford stretched the limits of sounds and visuals to a point beyond reasonable identity. A founding member of the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) and a very early member of the pioneer noise rock band Sm**ma, he played with such varied ensembles as Crowbar Salvation, Rancid Vat, the Mystery Band, EXP, Heltir, AIRWAY, the Hangar Quartet, DAFT, the Artificial Art Ensemble and performed with John Wiese and GX Jupitter-Larsen. He published 4 chapbooks of poems between the years 1991 and 2002, had 3 books published focusing on his art and used to work as a tattooist for almost 30 years. Ace Farren Ford died in 2023.

‘Memoirs From Monrovia (and other delights)’ is a compilation of collages, reminders, notes, poetry and cut-up texts that Ace Farren Ford produced and collected during a stint as a p**n shop assistant in Monrovia, California from 1982-1984. This handsome edition contains candid, ingenious and often hilarious material, some of which Ace published privately in editions of 10 copies shortly after his lay-off from the job in 1984. The existing Monrovia material has now been compiled and introduced by Ace for a joint edition by Moloko Plus from Schönebeck, Germany and Sea Urchin, Rotterdam. The book, beautifully designed by Anneke Auer, has been printed in a limited run of 120 copies.

‘Memoirs From Monrovia’ is sheer delight retrieved from the counter of a 1980s adult bookstore. ‘For those of you who would like to know the surreal experience of those days, this is as close as you are likely to get’, Ace concluded.

delight retrieved from the counter of a 1980s adult bookstore