The Transnational Beat Generation (PDF)

NANCYM. GRACEVirginia Myers Professor of English at The College of Wooster, USA, and chair of the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program.
JENNIE SKERL was associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at West Chester University, USA, and is a founding board member and past president of the Beat Studies Association.

'The Transnational Beat Generation explores the global dimensions of Beat literature in a series of solidly researched essays about the world-wide influence of major and minor Beat authors during the second half of the twentieth century. This book will stimulate thought and provoke controversy as certainly as it will enlarge our frame of reference for Beat writing. It makes the case not only that Beat writers created literature that inspired resistance movements throughout the world, but also that they continue to represent the spirit of freedom to young readers everywhere.' Ann Charters, emeritus professor of American literature, University of Connecticut and editor of The Penguin Beat Reader and The Penguin Sixties Reader

'The Beat Generation has often been presented as quintessentially American despite its critique of American culture and politics. This collection brings new light to this avant-garde movement by re-examining the international aspects of its roots as well as later reverberations. With historical documentation and literary analysis these essays demonstrate convincingly that much of what we now associate with global postmodernism was already evident in the work of a more widely dispersed Beat Generation.' - Robin Lydenberg, Boston College

'In essays that range around the world and across cultures, The Transnational Beat Generation has marked out a rich field that makes a natural fit for artists who above all else lived and wrote beyond borders; this book will open up Beat Studies and point it in new, uncharted directions.' - Oliver Harris, president of the European Beat Studies Network