‘A brave man and a brave poet.’ Bob Dylan

‘Utterly extraordinary.’ Guardian

‘A torrent of textual splendor.’ Los Angeles Times

Little Boy was quite lost. He had no idea who he was or where he had come from. Grown Boy came into his own voice and let loose his word-horde pent-up within him.

From growing up as an orphan in 1920s New York, to serving in the Navy at the D-Day landings in Normandy, to a vagabond life drinking in Parisian cafes, to befriending America’s greatest counter-cultural writers, Little Boy has seen it all.

This is the story of one man’s extraordinary life - a story steeped in the exhilarating energy of the Beats. It is a novel serving as the literary last will and testament of the iconic publisher and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti: a meditation on his one hundred years on the planet, rich in wisdom, emotion and memories.