Jack Kerouac

The unofficial spokesperson in prose for the Beat movement, which involved a generation of American writers and poets in the 1950s, Jack Kerouac rejected the conventions of the middle classes and described an alternative lifestyle in his writings. Kerouac dropped out of New York City’s Columbia College and spent years roaming the United States. He combined fact and fiction to create popular works such as On the Road (1957), in which he describes the alienation and restless pursuit of truth experienced by this non-conformist generation. Kerouac drew on experiences with his contemporaries and friends, including intellectuals Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, and William S. Burroughs for his material.

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Kerouac, Jack; New Left in the US; Beat Generation

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