Jack Kerouac (pronounced ) (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969) was an American novelist, writer, poet, and artist. He is perhaps the best known of a group of writers and friends who came to be known as the Beat Generation, a term he himself created.
Kerouac enjoyed some degree of popular appeal but little critical acclaim during his lifetime. Today, however, he is considered an important and influential author. His spontaneous, confessional prose style has inspired numerous other writers, including Tom Robbins, Lester Bangs, Richard Brautigan and Ken Kesey, as well authors in the New Journalism school of writing. Kerouac was also an influence on baby boomer musicians, including The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Morrissey and Jim Morrison. Kerouac's best known works are On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur and Visions of Cody.
Kerouac divided most of his young adult life between roaming the vast American landscape and life at home with his mother. Faced with a changing post-war America, he sought to find his place, but eventually came to reject the values and social norms of the Fifties. His writing often reflects a desire to break free from society's structures and to find higher meaning.
This search led Kerouac to experiment with drugs and to embark on trips around the world. His writings are often credited as a catalyst for the 1960s counterculture. Kerouac died in St. Petersburg, Florida, at the age of 47 from an internal hemorrhage, the result of alcoholism.