Peter Lamborn Wilson
Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka Hakim Bey, 1945, New York) is an anarchist cultural critic, poet and author of TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone (1991). After studying at Columbia University, he traveled through the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nepal. He was a consultant for the World Islam Festival, London and Tehran. He worked at the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy in Tehran, leaving the country during the Islamic Revolution.
His early writing concentrates on theology and poetry, but on returning to the US he began to inflect his ideas with anarchism, Situationism, and Deleuzian philosophy. His most influential work, TAZ, argues for the creation of spaces of liberation from authority in everyday life, which are capable of disappearing from sanctions before they can be crushed by government and all powers. Hakim Bey is a central figure in post‐left anarchy and his critical writing has been highly influential amongst rave youth culture and a range of anarchist countercultures – not least in the organization of Reclaim the Streets, a global organization dedicated to unsanctioned events that typified anti‐globalization activism in the 1990s. However, he has also suffered heavy criticism.
Works
- editor, with Jim Fleming, Semiotext(e) USA, 1987.
- editor, with Rudy Rucker and Robert Anton Wilson, Semiotext(e) SF, 1989.
- Hakim Bey, T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism, New York: Autonomedia, 1991, viii+141 pp; 2nd ed., new pref., New York: Autonomedia, 2003, xii+147 pp. Contains three parts: "Chaos", "Communiques", and "Temporary Autonomous Zone".
- T.A.Z. Die Temporäre Autonome Zone, trans. Jürgen Schneider, Amsterdam/Berlin: ID-Archiv, 1994, 161 pp. (German)
- T.A.Z.: Zone Temporaneamente Autonome, trans. Syd MIGX, Milan: ShaKe, 1995; 2007, 182 pp. (Italian)
- TAZ: zone autonome temporaire, trans. Christine Tréguier, Paris: l'Éclat, 1997, 90 pp; repr., Schizoïdes, 2006. Trans. of third part only. (French)
- TAZ: ezor oṭonomi era, trans. Liat Sabin, Tel Aviv: Resling, 2003, 107 pp. (Hebrew)
- Dočasná autonomní zóna, trans. Blumfeld, Prague: tranzit.cz, 2004, 88 pp. Trans. of third part only. [1] (Czech)
- Dočasná autonomní zóna, trans. Yosef, 2007. (Czech)
- Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs and European Renegadoes, New York: Autonomedia, 1995; repr., 2003.