John Tytell
| John Tytell | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 17, 1939 Antwerp, Belgium |
| Residence | Greenwich Village, New York |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | PhD |
| Alma mater |
City College of New York New York University |
| Occupation | Academic, writer |
| Employer | Queens College, City University of New York |
| Spouse(s) | Mellon Tytell |
| Awards | Pulitzer Prize nomination for Ezra Pound: The Solitary Volcano (1987) |
John Tytell (born May 17, 1939) is an American writer and academic, whose works on such literary figures as Jack Kerouac, Ezra Pound, Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller, and William S. Burroughs, have made him both a leading scholar of the Beat Generation, and a respected name in literature in general. He has been a professor of English at Queens College, City University of New York since 1977. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his Ezra Pound: The Solitary Volcano (1987).
Tytell was born in Antwerp, Belgium. As Tytell would later write about this time period in his book Reading New York, literature was both an escape from the gloom of his darkened bedroom, as well as a subversive act of defiance, because he was forbidden to read for fear that the strain would damage his eyes.
The impetus for the book Naked Angels (published in 1976 by McGraw Hill) was a paper that Tytell presented at "The Last Lecture Series" held by Queens College, entitled: The Beat Generation and the Continuing American Revolution. In terms of an advancement for the study of the Beats, both the paper and the subsequent book were incredibly important as a scholar had begun to seriously analyze major Beat texts.
Tytell's next book, Ezra Pound: The Solitary Volcano earned him a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize in 1987, and established him as a major chronicler of America's most important Men of Letters, and has never gone out of print. This career-making book was quickly followed by Passionate Lives, a study of both English and American writers, and the relationships that helped form their creative visions, which was translated into German and Korean.
The Living Theatre: Art, Exile and Outrage saw Tytell casting his eye from literature to the stage, where he saw the same rebellious spirit typified in The Beat culture, exert itself in the Living Theatre, which is both a New York and an American institution.
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