Little Boy
A Novel
From the famed publisher and poet, author of the million-copy-selling collection A Coney Island of the Mind, his literary last will and testament -- part autobiography, part summing up, part Beat-inflected torrent of language and feeling, and all magical.
"A volcanic explosion of personal memories, political rants, social commentary, environmental jeremiads and cultural analysis all tangled together in one breathless sentence that would make James Joyce proud. . ."
—Ron Charles, The Washington Post
In this unapologetically unclassifiable work 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…
LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI was born in Yonkers, New York in 1919. Founder of the famed City Lights Booksellers and Publishers, he was an activist, painter, and author of numerous works of poetry, prose, and drama. His A Coney Island of the Mind was one of the bestselling poetry books of all time. Among his many honors were the Los Angeles Times' Robert Kirsch Award, the NBCC's Ivan Sandrof Award, and the ACLU's Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award. He was also a Commander of the French Order of Arts and Letters. He lived in San Francisco, close by to the bookstore he founded. He died in 2021.
Little Boy
Lawrence Ferlinghetti