An extraordinary anthology of the best works of one of the essential figures of the Beat Generation and the counterculture.

Allen Ginsberg is more than a writer: he is a myth. Maybe that's why he is sometimes reduced to the cliché of a bearded beatnik. But Ginsberg is a much more multifaceted character, and this anthology will allow readers to delve into all the nuances of a fascinating figure.

Gathered here is a careful selection of poems, songs, essays, interviews, diary entries, letters and photographs. The most famous poems are collected - "Howl" and "Kaddish" - but also other wonders such as "Wichita Vortex Sutra" and the "Plutonian Ode", there are texts about his experiences with LSD and ayahuasca, reflections on the Cuban Revolution, the Vietnam War, censorship, Walt Whitman and the Beat Generation, references to Kerouac, Neal Cassady and other relevant figures in his life, memories of a trip to India and signs of his interest in Buddhism... In short, an excellent compendium that helps to better understand an essential writer of the 20th century.

«A very complete overview of his work... An essential starting point for any reader who immerses themselves for the first time in Ginsberg's still controversial literary production» (Library Journal); «A magnificent selection of the writings of an often transgressive and revolutionary author, who was also a tireless social activist» (KirkusReviews); «When the Earth is about to be reduced to dust, this will be one of the books that will have to be sent to Mars so that they know who we were» (Anne Waldman); "I wouldn't say that he is a good poet but that he is our great American poet" (Norman Mailer); «An intellectually impeccable selection, which distills the mystical visionary Ginsberg and the dark prophet who predicted what the powerful did not want to hear» (Lawrence Ferlinghetti); "Ginsberg is at once tragic and dynamic, a lyrical genius, a marvelous trickster, and probably the most extraordinarily influential poetic voice in America since Whitman" (Bob Dylan).