The Buddhist Years
(Hardback)
Publishing Details
The Buddhist Years
By (Author) Jack Kerouac
Edited by Charles Shuttleworth
Rare Bird Books
Rare Bird Books
2nd July 2025
United States
Classifications
General
Non Fiction
Literary essays
Physical Properties
Hardback
356
Width 152mm, Height 228mm, Spine 30mm
Description
A brand new volume of previously unpublished writings from the archives reflecting Jack Kerouac's Buddhist thinking
From a young age Kerouac was a spiritual thinker and questioner, and he always considered himself a spiritual writer. Buddhism gave more meaning to Jack's work as a writer: he was working not for personal accomplishment and glory but for human betterment. And Buddhism justified his lifestyle: with its vision of the material world as empty and illusory, he was free to do what he wanted.
This collection shows Jack at his earnest, soulful best. The writing is consistently and wonderfully Kerouacian: it is honest, reflective, heartfelt, and revealing, with great characterizations amid his self-exploration as he wrestles with his consciousness, desperate for belief.
Author Bio
Jack Kerouacwas born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922, the youngest of three children in a Franco-American family. He attended local Catholic and public schools and won a scholarship to Columbia University in New York City, where he first met Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. His first novel,The Town and the City, appeared in 1950, but it wasOn the Road, published in 1957 and memorializing his adventures with Neal Cassady, that epitomized to the world what became known as the Beat generation and made Kerouac one of the most best-known writers of his time. Publication of many other books followed, among themThe Dharma Bums,The Subterraneans, andBig Sur. Kerouac considered all of his autobiographical fiction to be part of one vast book,The Duluoz Legend. He died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969, at the age of forty-seven. Charles Shuttleworthis senior editor of Sal Paradise Press, in charge of identifying and shepherding writings in the Kerouac archive to publication. As such, he editedDesolation Peak, published in 2022, which consists of Kerouacs writing during his two-month stint as a fire lookout for the US Forest Service in the North Cascades in 1956; and the next volume,TheBuddhistYears, focuses on writings from 195457, revealing how Kerouacs study ofBuddhismled to spiritual insights and colored his fiction. Shuttleworth has been teaching classes on Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation for the past thirtyyears, currently at the Harker School in San Jose, California.
