Henry Valentine Miller (born 26 December 1891 in Los Angeles, California, June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. His work is composed of semi-autobiographical novels, in which the crude, sensual and unobtrusive tone aroused a series of controversies within a Puritan United States that Miller wanted to stigmatize denouncing the moral hypocrisy of American society, criticizing in passing the future of human existence, stripping of its cynicism and multiple contradictions. Censored for his provocative and rebellious style and content in relation to the literary creation of his time, his works influenced notably the so-called Beat Generation.