Ken Kesey author page

Ken Kesey biography

Ken Kesey was an American author best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, published in 1962 by Viking Press. The novel has been widely studied in schools and adapted into a successful stage play and an Academy Award-winning film. Kesey’s second novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, was published in 1964.

Kesey attended the University of Oregon and later participated in the creative writing programme at Stanford University. While at Stanford, he volunteered for government-sponsored medical studies, which influenced his writing. His works are associated with the countercultural movement of the 1960s.

In addition to his novels, Kesey wrote essays and short stories. He was also known for his involvement with the Merry Pranksters, a group that became prominent in the 1960s for their cross-country bus trip, which was later chronicled in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest received the American Library Association’s Best of the Best 1966 and was included in the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Kesey’s influence on American literature and culture remains significant through his published works and public activities.