The Beat Generation meets the Hungry Generation: U.S.—Calcutta networks and the 1960s 'Revolt of the Personal'
Downloadable Content
Abstract
- This essay explores the relationship between the U.S.-based Beat literary movement and
the Hungry Generation literary movement centered in and around Calcutta, India, in the early 1960s.
It discusses a trip Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky took to India in 1962, where they met writers
associated with the Hungry Generation. It further explains how Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of
City Lights Books in San Francisco, was inspired to start a new literary magazine, City Lights Journal,
by Ginsberg’s letters from India, which included work by Hungry Generation writers. The essay
shows how City Lights Journal packaged the Hungry Generation writers as the Indian wing of the
Beat movement, and focuses in particular on the work of Malay Roy Choudhury, the founder of
the Hungry Generation who had been prosecuted for obscenity for his poem “Stark Electric Jesus”.
The essay emphasizes in particular the close relationship between aesthetics and politics in Hungry
Generation writing, and suggests that Ginsberg’s own mid-1960s turn to political activism via the
imagination is reminiscent of strategies employed by Hungry Generation writers.
| Title | The Beat Generation meets the Hungry Generation: U.S.—Calcutta networks and the 1960s 'Revolt of the Personal' |
|---|---|
| Creator | Belletto, Steven |
| Publisher | Humanities |
| Academic Department | English |
| Division | Humanities |
| Organization | Lafayette College |
| Date Issued | March 2019 |
| Date Available | 2019-01-07T14:56:04Z |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Keyword | international Beat movement |
| Hungry Generation | |
| “Stark Electric Jesus” | |
| Malay Roy Choudhury | |
| Hungryalists | |
| Allen Ginsberg | |
| Beats in India | |
| transnational Beats | |
| Beat politics | |
| “Wichita Vortex Sutra” | |
| City Lights Journal | |
| Beat Generation | |
| Bibliographic Citation | Belletto, S. (2019 Mar) "The Beat Generation meets the Hungry Generation: U.S.—Calcutta networks and the 1960s 'Revolt of the Personal'." Humanities 8.1: Article 3. |
| Standard Identifier | DOI 10.3390/h8010003 |
| Handle 10385/2543 | |
| Permalink | http://hdl.handle.net/10385/2543 |
| Rights Statement |
Creative Commons - Attribution
|
| Rights Holders | Belletto, Steven |
Contains
| File | Belletto-Humanities-vol8-2019.pdf | Uploaded 2019-10-20 | Public | Download |
Member of Collection
