Jack Kerouac American writer and poet Date of Birth: 12.03.1922 Country: USA

1. Biography of Jack Kerouac
2. Early Life and Education
3. The Beat Generation
4. Literary Works
5. Later Life and Death

Biography of Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac was an American writer and poet, and a prominent figure in the Beat Generation literature. Although he achieved popularity among readers, he did not receive much critical attention during his lifetime. Today, Kerouac is considered one of the most significant American writers.

Early Life and Education

Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts to a family of Franco-Americans. He was the third child of Leo-Alcide Kerouac and Gabrielle-Ange Levesque, who were originally from Quebec, Canada. Kerouac did not learn English until the age of six, as his family spoke Quebecois French at home. At an early age, he was deeply affected by the death of his older brother Gerard, which later inspired him to write the book "Visions of Gerard".

Kerouac's father managed a printing press and published a local bulletin called "The Spotlight." This exposed young Jack to the process of printing and he eventually started his own sports bulletin, which he sold to his friends in Lowell. He also became a star player on the local football team, which earned him a scholarship to Boston College and later Columbia University in New York.

The Beat Generation

While in New York, Kerouac met the people with whom he would later travel the world and who would become characters in many of his novels. This group, known as the Beat Generation, included Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, and William S. Burroughs. However, Kerouac's sports scholarship was not renewed due to conflicts with his coach, which led him to leave college in his second year and join the merchant marine in 1942. He later joined the United States Navy during World War II but was discharged on psychiatric grounds.

During his time at Columbia University, Kerouac and Burroughs were involved in a murder case. Their friend Lucien Carr killed another member of their circle, David Kammerer, and Kerouac assisted Carr in disposing of the evidence. Carr eventually turned himself in to the police. This incident became the basis for a detective novel they co-wrote in 1945, titled "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks".

Literary Works

While working at sea, Kerouac spent his time in New York with his friends from Fordham University in the Bronx. It was during this time that he began writing his first novel, "The Town and the City," which was published under the name John Kerouac in 1950. Unlike his later works that established his "beat" style, "The Town and the City" was heavily influenced by Thomas Wolfe.

His next novel, "On the Road," was not published until 1957 by Viking Press. It is a largely autobiographical work narrated by one of the characters, Sal Paradise, and describes his adventures traveling across the United States and Mexico with Neal Cassady, the inspiration for the character Dean Moriarty. The novel is often seen as a defining work of the post-war Beat Generation, with its themes of jazz, poetry, and psychoactive substances. It established Kerouac as the "king of the Beat Generation".

Later Life and Death

In 1958, Kerouac wrote and performed a text for the Beat film "Pull My Daisy". In 1954, he discovered Dwight Goddard's "A Buddhist Bible" at the San Jose Library in California, which sparked his interest in Buddhism. This influenced his writing and is evident in his novel "The Dharma Bums," which tells the story of his adventures with poet Gary Snyder and other writers in the San Francisco area. In 1961, Kerouac attempted to quit alcohol and lived in Big Sur with poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, but the experience worsened his depression.

In 1965, Kerouac traveled to Paris to trace his ancestry, resulting in the novel "Satori in Paris". In 1966, he married Stella Sampas, his third wife. In 1969, Kerouac died from an extensive stomach hemorrhage, caused by cirrhosis of the liver resulting from his alcoholism. Some sources suggest that his numerous cuts, sustained during a drunken altercation at a local bar, may have also contributed to his death. At the time of his death, he was living with Stella and his mother, Gabrielle. Kerouac was buried in his hometown of Lowell.