The Valley (suite)

The Valley is a suite of etchings by Keith Haring, illustrating the eponymous final chapter from The Western Lands by William S. Burroughs, drawn in 1989 and published in 1990. It is an ominous allegorical depiction of the horror and chaos of the AIDS Crisis.

The suite comprises thirty-one sheets alongside a colophon sheet, within a black cloth-covered folio and presented in a red cloth-covered portfolio. There are sixteen etchings by Haring in black ink, accompanied by sixteen photo-etchings in red ink, of handwritten text by Burroughs (fifteen sheets each, with the final sheet shared).

Keith Haring tested positive for HIV in 1987 and had since developed Kaposi's sarcoma, a form of cancer that often accompanies AIDS, by the time these etchings were drawn in April 1989.

This was the last collaboration between Haring and Burroughs, as Haring died of the complications from AIDS on 16 February 1990, weeks after publication, age 31.