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Argo Publishing: Launch of two novels by Jack Kerouac
Everyone knows Jack Kerouac because of his novel On the road; everybody knows that Kerouac hitchhiked all over the United States in the 1940s and 1950s, consuming all kinds of alcohol and drugs, running around with whomever he could, while writing, writing, writing. But this general awareness forgets that Kerouac is also - or perhaps primarily - a poet of childhood and adolescence; that the highlights of his work are the books in which he discusses his hometown of Lowell, his family, his high school friends, and his first loves. This can be seen in two of Kerouac's newly published novels: the first, Gerard's vision, recently published in a translation by Vít Penkala, the second, Maggie Cassidy, is out now in a translation by Michala Marková. Both translators will read a short excerpt from their translations and then discuss both novels and Kerouac's work as a whole with Petr Onufer, editor of the collected writings of Kerouac.
The break will be followed by a concert of the Žižkov band T.G.P. Their songs are about love, death, gin, trips to Mexico and home, and a Texas ghost town - and they don't try to hide their Kerouac inspiration: one Kerouac translator plays the bass, another Kerouac translator is on guitar and microphone, a solo guitarist wrote the afterword to Kerouac, the drummer proofreads the translations of Kerouac's novels and the singer handles the copyright issues.
Books by Jack Kerouac published by Argo
Free admission.