Which Beat writer published the novel Her in 1960?

Lawrence Ferlinghetti published the novel Her in 1960. Although best known as a poet and the founder of City Lights Books, Ferlinghetti also wrote fiction, drama, travel writing, and political poetry.

Her is a formally unusual novel associated with Ferlinghetti’s interest in experimental literature and the cultural atmosphere surrounding the Beat movement. Its publication shows that the Beat literary world extended beyond the better-known prose of Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.

Ferlinghetti’s career combined writing with publishing and bookselling. City Lights Books, which he established in San Francisco in 1953, became especially important for affordable paperback poetry and for giving controversial or unconventional writers a platform. His publishing role is sometimes so prominent that readers overlook his own novels.

The title Her is also easy to confuse with later works using the same pronoun-like title. In Beat literary history, the relevant book is Ferlinghetti’s 1960 novel. It belongs to the same broad period as his major poetry and his work building San Francisco’s independent literary culture.