Jack Kerouac, born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac, was a seminal figure of the Beat Generation, a movement that he pioneered alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. Of French-Canadian ancestry, Kerouac was brought up in a French-speaking home in Lowell, Massachusetts, where he learned English at the age of six, speaking it with a noticeable accent well into his late teens. Kerouac's journey into literature began in earnest during World War II, serving in the United States Merchant Marine and completing his first novel during this period, though it would not be published until more than 40 years after his demise.

His literary breakthrough came with the publication of The Town and the City in 1950, but it was his second book, On the Road (1957), that catapulted him to fame, cementing his status as a beat icon. Kerouac's writing is renowned for its stream of consciousness spontaneous prose, covering a wide array of themes including Catholic spirituality, jazz, promiscuity, New York City life, Buddhism, drugs, poverty, and the essence of travel. Throughout his career, Kerouac published 12 more novels and numerous volumes of poetry, leaving behind a significant legacy that has greatly influenced cultural icons of the 1960s like Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Jerry Garcia, and the Doors.

Kerouac's lifestyle, marked by heavy drinking, led to his early death from an abdominal hemorrhage at the age of 47. In the years following his death, Kerouac's literary prestige has only grown, with several previously unseen works being published, further cementing his status as an influential American novelist and poet.