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Kerouac Jack 1922 - 1969 (47)

Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don't be sorry


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On the road



Jack Kerouac was an American writer and poet who was born in Lowell, Massachusetts on March 12, 1922. His nine-year-old brother died when he was 4 years old, which deeply affected him. From a young age he enjoyed reading and making illustrated stories which he presented to relatives and friends. Growing up he became good at sports and especially in American football. After graduating he received a sports scholarship from Columbia University in New York. His studies lasted only one year because he broke his leg in a match and he was forced to stop the sport and the studies. He returned to his hometown and first worked as a sports writer and then did various jobs. In 1943 he enlisted in the US Navy but in a few months he was discharge due to his poor psychological condition and his refusal to obey his superiors. Later, however, he found himself in the navy again and traveled to England. When he returned, he began to associate with his old fellow students from Columbia, creating a group that stated that their generation was tired of life and the world, having a sense of defeat (beatness).

Gradually the term "beat" emerged as a description of that generation. (beat generation). In 1945 he married Eddie Parker with whom he divorced the following year and then began writing his first novel (The Town and the City) which was published in 1950, the year in which he married his second wife. Throughout the 1950s, Kerouac traveled throughout America and Mexico. In 1955 he began to study Buddhism and during a trip to Mexico he completed a collection of poems entitled "Mexico City Blues".

He wrote several novels during his wanderings and in 1957 his most important work was published, "On the Road". 'The book of the Beat Generation, which describes the rebellious youth of today and the frantic search for experience and sensuality', he wrote on the cover . The questioning of social class, the experimentation with sex, drink and drugs, the escape from the city, the refusal of consumerism, the friendship, turned out in a great way in a book he wrote in 2 weeks during which he slept little while consuming a lot of coffee and amphetamines. Later, of course, he edited it until it took the final form in which it was published and remained in history. Kerouac gained great fame from this book, in the following years he read his poetry and short texts in various New York hangouts while at the same time he wrote articles in magazines, novels and continued to live on the edge with parties, a lot of alcohol, drugs and sex. In 1966, he married his Greek-born childhood friend, Stella Samba; in 1969, on October 20, he was sitting on the couch at his mother's house drinking beer, when he suddently died of bleeding, due to cirrhosis of the liver.