Ginsberg: A Biography Summary and Reviews

Ginsberg: A Biography
by Barry Miles

Ginsberg: A Biography
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Book Summary Information

Author: Barry Miles
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2001-11-01
ISBN: 0753504863
Number of pages: 627
Publisher: Virgin Books

Book Reviews of Ginsberg: A Biography

Book Review: A Beautiful Tribute to a Beautiful Lift
Summary: 5 Stars

An exhaustive and brilliantly executed biography of 'the most famous poet in America', Allen Ginsberg. The reader is left feeling simultaneously up-lifted and saddened by the life and premature death of Ginsberg of lung cancer in 1997. When Howl was first published in 1956, little did Ginsberg realise the public backlash this small, anonymous looking book would achieve. The obscenity trial that followed would prove to be a triumph for literary freedom of speech over censorship and Ginsberg and other 'members' of the so-called Beat Generation would reach a wider audience than ever before. His next book of poetry, Kaddish, followed in 1961, then immortality beckoned. But Ginsberg's life was not just poetry. He was a life long supporter of many causes - he was the first poet to begin a charity for inpoverished writers and artists and championed gay rights (he himself was notoriously wonderfully flagrantly gay), not to mention the numerous other human rights causes he believed in. I would not be exaggerating if I was to call Ginsberg the voice and activist of the 60's. 'Ginsberg' chronicles the life, loves and many adventures of the last real literary character of the 20th century - a writer with true integrity, an indefatigable vigour for life, a role-model and most importantly (but sometimes forgotten), a true literary genius. However, this book never loses sight of Ginsberg's downfalls, and whilst Barry Miles was a close friend of Ginsberg he never enters into sycophant territory and due to this friendship, we are privy to certain details which only Ginsberg himself could have contributed. This is the only biography to read this year. A Great Loss Indeed.

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