Jack Kerouac is on the road. Gift book bound in leather

Jack Kerouac gave a voice to an entire generation in literature, during his short life he managed to write about 20 books of prose and poetry and became the most famous and controversial author of his time. Some branded him as a subverter of the foundations, others considered him a classic of modern culture, but all beatniks and hipsters learned to write from his books - to write not what you know, but what you see, believing that the world itself will reveal its nature.

It was the novel "On the Road" that brought Kerouac worldwide fame and became a classic of American literature. The first editor of this book liked to remember that a more strange manuscript was never brought to him. Big as a lumberjack, Kerouac brought to the editorial office a roll of paper 147 meters long without a single punctuation mark. It was a story about the fate and pain of an entire generation, built like a jazz improvisation. And the main character of the novel, the scoffer, womanizer and drunkard Dean Moriarty, is still driving his rattling Mustang on a road that will never end.

Each new generation found something different in the Beatniks, but the peak of the revival of interest in Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs came in the first decade of the XXI century. A few years ago, the manuscript of "On the Road" went up for auction for almost $ 2.5 million, and now the novel is finally preparing to find a film incarnation.