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The Best Minds of My Generation

A Literary History of the Beats

Allen Ginsberg Bill Morgan

$29.99

Paperback

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English
Penguin Classics
15 April 2018
An astonishing and unique historical record of the Beat Generation, from one of its pre-eminent figures

In 1977, twenty years after the publication of his landmark poem 'Howl' and Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Allen Ginsberg decided it was time to teach a course on the literary history of the Beat Generation. In The Best Minds of My Generation - a compilation of lectures from the course, expertly edited by renowned Beats scholar, Bill Morgan - Ginsberg gives us the convoluted origin story of the 'Beat' idea. Amongst anecdotes of meeting Kerouac, Burroughs and other figures for the first time, Ginsberg elucidates the importance of music, and particularly jazz rhythms, to Beat writing, discusses their many influences - literary, pharmaceutical and spiritual - and paints a portrait of a group who were leading a literary revolution. A unique document that works both as historical record and unconventional memoir, The Best Minds of My Generation is a vivid, personal and eye-opening look at one of the most important literary movements of the twentieth century.
By:  
Edited by:  
Imprint:   Penguin Classics
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 198mm,  Width: 127mm,  Spine: 21mm
Weight:   339g
ISBN:   9780141399010
ISBN 10:   0141399015
Series:   Penguin Modern Classics
Pages:   496
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) was an American poet, best known for his iconic Howl, one of the most widely read and translated poems of the century, for celebrating his friends of the Beat Generation and for attacking what he saw as the destructive forces of materialism and conformity in the United States at the time. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, was awarded the medal of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture, and won the National Book Award for The Fall of America.

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