Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey is an American novelist, essayist, and countercultural figure best known for his 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and his 1964 novel Sometimes a Great Notion. He is also widely recognized as the leader of the Merry Pranksters, a countercultural group known for their psychedelic adventures across the United States in a bus nicknamed Furthur. He served as a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippie movement of the 1960s, and his experiences as a night attendant in a psychiatric ward and as a paid volunteer experimental subject taking mind-altering drugs directly inspired his most famous work. He died on November 10, 2001, in Eugene, Oregon, at the age of 66.