Skip to main content

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Biography

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers, New York in 1919. Founder of the famed City Lights Booksellers and Publishers, he is an activist, painter and author of numerous works of poetry, prose and drama. His A CONEY ISLAND OF THE MIND is one of the bestselling poetry books of all time. Among his many honors are the Los Angeles Times' Robert Kirsch Award, the NBCC’s Ivan Sandrof Award, and the ACLU’s Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award. He is also a Commander of the French Order of Arts and Letters. He lives in San Francisco, close by to the bookstore he founded.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Books by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Little Boy
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti - Fiction

Lawrence Ferlinghetti lets loose an exhilarating rush of language to craft what might be termed a closing statement about his highly significant and productive 99 years on this planet. The "Little Boy" of the title is Ferlinghetti himself as a child, shuffled from his overburdened mother to his French aunt to foster childhood with a rich Bronxville family. Service in World War II (including the D-Day landing), graduate work and a scholar gypsy's vagabond life in Paris followed. These biographical reminiscences are interweaved with Allen Ginsberg-esque high energy bursts of raw emotion, rumination, reflection, reminiscence and prognostication on what we may face as a species on Planet Earth in the future.