TEHRAN – A Persian translation of American writer Jack Kerouac’s book “Satori in Paris & Pic” has been published by Nimaj Publications in Tehran. 

The book has been translated into Persian by Mohammad Razzazian. 

“Satori in Paris & Pic” contains Kerouac’s last novels, showcasing the remarkable range and versatility of his mature talent. 

“Satori in Paris” is a rollicking autobiographical account of Kerouac’s search for his heritage in France, and lands the author in his familiar milieu of seedy bars and all-night conversations. 

“Pic” is Kerouac’s final novel and one of his most unusual. Narrated by ten-year-old Pictorial Review Jackson in a North Carolina vernacular, the novel charts the adventures of Pic and his brother Slim as they travel from the rural South to Harlem in the 1940s.

Kerouac was a leader of the Beat movement whose most famous book, “On the Road” had broad cultural influence before it was recognized for its literary merits. 

Living in New York in the late 1940s, Kerouac wrote his first novel, “Town and City”, a highly autobiographical tale about the intersection of small-town family values and the excitement of city life. The novel was published in 1950 with the help of Ginsberg’s Columbia professors, and although the well-reviewed book earned Kerouac a modicum of recognition, it did not make him famous.

Kerouac’s New York friend in the late 1940s was Neal Cassady; the two took several cross-country road trips to Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver and Mexico City. 

These trips provided the inspiration for Kerouac’s next and greatest novel, “On the Road”, a barely fictionalized account of these road trips packed with love, drugs and jazz. 

Kerouac’s writing of “On the Road” in 1951 is the stuff of legends. He wrote the entire novel over one three-week bender of frenzied composition, on a single scroll of paper that was 120 feet long.

“On the Road” captured the spirit of its time as no other work of the 20th century had since F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”.

Photo: Front cover of the Persian translation of Jack Kerouac’s “Satori in Paris & Pic”.

RM/MMS/YAW