Kerouac

Jack Kerouac, born Jean-Louis Kerouac on March 12, 1922, in Lowell, Massachusetts, was an American novelist and poet and a leading figure of the Beat Generation. He is best known for his spontaneous prose style and for capturing a restless search for meaning in postwar America. Raised in a Franco‑American Catholic family, his early work culminated in The Town and the City (1950), which established his reputation as a major American writer.

Kerouac’s most influential work is On the Road (1957), a semi-autobiographical novel about cross-country travel with friends such as Neal Cassady. The book helped define the Beat ethos and American counterculture in the 1950s. It was famously written on a continuous 120-foot manuscript scroll, a symbol of his improvisational method and wish to preserve the spontaneity of thought.

Other notable works include The Dharma Bums (1958), which blends travel, Buddhist spirituality, and nature, and Big Sur (1962), a troubled, autobiographical account of his later life. He also produced poetry and several other novels, with Visions of Cody published posthumously in 1972. Kerouac’s themes often center on freedom, nonconformity, spirituality, and the search for meaning in a rapidly changing society.

Kerouac died on October 21, 1969, in St. Petersburg, Florida, from complications related to alcoholism. His legacy endures in his influence on American literature and the broader countercultural movements that followed.