Allen Ginsberg

He met Burroughs and Kerouac while at university. Williams was his mentor, and introduced him to Rexroth who introduced him to Snyder. Ginsberg, Corso and Burroughs lived in the so-called Beat Hotel in Paris; he helped Burroughs (with whom he had a brief intense affair) with the structure of ‘Naked Lunch’. He met Duchamp, Ray, Péret, Tzara and Céline at this time. Ferlinghetti published him, Bateson asked him to help in LSD research, Dylan paid for a tape-recorder, and Glass collaborated on an opera. Škvorecky invited him to be May King in Prague, Yevtushenko met him in Moscow, and Rushdie meditated with him.