Dictionary of Literary Biography

The Beats: Literary Bohemians in Postwar America (Part 1: A-L, Part 2: M-Z)
Volume 16
Published by Gale

American avant-garde writers, sharing a certain distrust of the virtues of progress and power, came together in the 1950s and 1960s. They wrote so persuasively about what they saw as repressive social and political conditions in the United States that they helped to bring about changes in the consciousness of many young Americans who read their poems and novels and were caught up in their spirit of rebellion. Poets, novelists, and nonconformist thinkers, collectively known as The Beats and profiled in this DLB volume, signaled the presence of something new in American writing-vivid descriptions of a lifestyle that rejected materialistic values and went in search of a deeper meaning to life. They stated their case in speech rhythms and subjects that were distinctly American. William Burroughs summed up the movement: "Once started ...the Beat movement had a momentum of its own and a world-wide impact...\[it] came at the right time and said something that millions of people of all nationalities all over the world were waiting to hear."

66 entries include: Paul Blackburn, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, Bob Dylan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Norman Mailer, Peter Orlovskyv, Alan Watts and William Carlos William.

Definitive work on the writers of the Beat Generation...a Valuable reference work for scholars and followers of that era.

Review:

"It is hands-down the best overall literary reference work ever published, a proverbial diamond as big as the Ritz..."
-- Library Journal (June 15, 2006)
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