The Dharma Bums is Jack Kerouac’s 1958 novel about Buddhism, friendship, and mountain solitude.
Viking Press published the book in 1958. Its central characters include Ray Smith, a fictionalized Kerouac, and Japhy Ryder, a fictionalized version of poet Gary Snyder. Their conversations and journeys connect Buddhist ideas with hiking, poetry, and rejection of consumer culture.
The novel draws particularly on Kerouac’s time in the wilderness and on his interest in Zen Buddhism. Snyder’s knowledge of East Asian poetry and Buddhist practice helped shape the book’s intellectual atmosphere.
The Dharma Bums is often grouped with On the Road, but its focus is different. Rather than centering mainly on highway travel and jazz-era nightlife, it emphasizes mountains, meditation, ecological awareness, and an alternative spiritual life. That distinction makes it an important companion to Kerouac’s better-known road novel.