“I walked around the sad honkytonks of Curtis Street; young kids in jeans and red shirts; peanut shells, movie marquees, shooting parlours. Beyond the glittering street was darkness, and beyond the darkness the West. I had to go.”

American novelist and poet

Jack Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. Born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac, he became a central figure in the Beat Generation and is known for helping shape it alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. His work is closely tied to that literary movement, and his reputation rests on the writing that helped define its voice and outlook. He is remembered as a novelist and poet whose name remains strongly associated with the Beat Generation.