Gary Snyder, A Wise Man

[Version en français] [Deutsche Fassung]

This text is an English translation of an original article by José Luis Regojo, which is authorized by José Luis himself, and which originally appeared in the magazine "política&prosa" in Spanish and Catalan.

Last March 12 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of the iconic American writer of the Beat Generation, Jack Kerouac. Beat is the name given to the group of founding poets of the literary movement that emerged between the 1940s and 1950s in the USA. Among the main members, in addition to Kerouac, we can find William Burroughs, Lucien Carr, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder and many others.

Jack Kerouac's most representative work is "On the Road", written between April 2 and April 22, 1951, and published in 1957. This novel tells the story of Sal Paradise (Jack himself) and Dean Moriarty, (the poet Neal Cassady) who make a road trip, with no clear destination, across the United States, by car. This adventure leads them to know the entrails of their country and the dark side of the American dream. A work full of hedonism, which uses music, drugs and sex as forms of expression of freedom, one of the characteristics of the philosophy of the Beat Generation.

Among Kerouac's other notable works is The Dharma Bums, whose main character, Japhy Ryder, is the alter ego of the poet Gary Snyder (San Francisco, 1930). Snyder shared with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac not only friendship, but life experiences that marked their later literary careers. Although Snyder may not like it, that friendship with Allen Ginsberg (with whom he participated in the anthological reading of 'Howl' at the Sixth Gallery in San Francisco, which marked the beginning of the Beat Generation) and his character in Kerouac's work have labeled him as a beat poet. Gary Snyder is also often associated with the San Francisco Renaissance literary movement.