Ferlinghetti: A Life

The San Francisco Chronicle praised Lawrence Ferlinghetti's life as a poet, publisher, bookseller, and activist, highlighting his role in promoting the Beat Generation and his search for self-identity through his work. This expanded edition of his biography includes a new foreword, epilogue, and afterword, making it an essential literary document for readers interested in American culture and social change.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 304 pages
Publication date: 30 June 2022
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher Inc

"No one who delves into this gentle record will fail to be moved." — San Francisco Chronicle

Poet, publisher, bookseller, and activist, Lawrence Ferlinghetti's story is a testament to a life beautifully lived with writers and books. In the mid-1950s, a group of San Francisco-based writers emerged as a central force in American letters. Self-styled bohemians, disillusioned with the old American dream of prosperity and conformity, they harangued these "virtues" in their writings. Among them were Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Gregory Corso. However, the unifying force among them was an unassuming, almost painfully shy young poet named Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

As owner of the now legendary City Lights Booksellers and its publishing enterprises, City Lights Publishers and its Pocket Poet Series, Ferlinghetti promoted the writings of his rebellious contemporaries and continually sought new talent to publish. At the same time, he conducted a parallel but more personal search for self-identity through his own work. Although that search began with a lonely, unstable childhood in which he never knew his real parents, it would not become manifest until years later with the 1958 publication of his first collection of poems, A Coney Island of the Mind. This debut would go on to sell more than one million copies and become one of the bestselling and most popular books of poetry ever published.

In this, the first biography of Ferlinghetti ever published (originally released in 1979), Neeli Cherkovski recreates those early years of the poet-publisher and examines the content and import of his work. Long out-of-print, this is a crucial literary document by a man who knew the legendary poet-publisher-bookseller.

Weight: 458g
Dimension: 153 x 229 x 26 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781574232592