Dharma Lion

A Biography of Allen Ginsberg

2016
Author:

Michael Schumacher

The expansive, authoritative biography of a Beat Generation leader—now with two new chapters

With the sweep of an epic novel, Michael Schumacher tells the story of Allen Ginsberg and his times, with fascinating portraits of Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and William Burroughs, among others, along with many rarely seen photographs.

Given access to Ginsberg’s private archives and having interviewed more than 100 people in 10 years of research, Schumacher weaves a monumental cultural biography.

Publishers Weekly

With the sweep of an epic novel, Michael Schumacher tells the story of Allen Ginsberg and his times, with fascinating portraits of Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and William Burroughs, among others, along with many rarely seen photographs.

Michael Schumacher has written extensively about Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Generation. His articles, reviews, and essays have appeared in newspapers and magazines across the country. He is editor of Family Business, a collection of letters between Allen and Louis Ginsberg, and The Essential Ginsberg, a volume of the best of Ginsberg’s poems, essays, songs, letters, journal entries, interviews, and photographs. He lives in Wisconsin.

Given access to Ginsberg’s private archives and having interviewed more than 100 people in 10 years of research, Schumacher weaves a monumental cultural biography.

Publishers Weekly

The man, the poet visionary who created the beat generation single-mindedly out of the whole cloth of his dharma brothers is here embodied whole.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Michael Schumacher’s critical biography of Allen Ginsberg is a brilliant study of the poet, his work, and his times. Clear, candid, cogent, and complete, Schumacher has produced a marvelously balanced portrait, accessible to all lovers of American poetry.

Ann Charters, author of Kerouac: A Biography and The Portable Beat Reader

Dharma Lion is a thorough, detailed, painstaking, monumental, comprehensive, encyclopedic account of the life of our Poet Laureate, Allen Ginsberg.

Timothy Leary

Allen Ginsberg is our magnanimous mountain, generous giant of living American poetry. He deserves a book as expansive and embracing as this.

John Tytell, author of Naked Angels: The Lives and Literature of the Beat Generation

Strong, wonderfully absorbing life of Beat bard Allen Ginsberg that breaks new ground in its critical analyses of the poet’s work. Schumacher goes over the events in Ginsberg’s life with an intelligence that bonds us to the emotionally battered poet. Rings the doorbell on your heart, your brain, and your love of great verse.

Kirkus Reviews