This literary movement built itself around underground jazz culture, which expressed liberation of body and soul. Inspired by jazzmen and hep cats, the Beat Generation hipsters rejected traditional values, embraced African-American musics, travelling, drugs, a free sex lifestyle as well as spirituality. Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and On the Road author Jack Kerouac launched the radical American counterculture that thrived in the 1960s and 1970s, leaving a tremendous mark on lifestyles, and on the world of arts and opinions _ hippies and punks alike. In partnership with the Centre Pompidou on the occasion of the "Beat Generation" exhibition in Paris, the story of the Beat Generation is told by Bruno Blum in a 32-page booklet. PATRICK FREMEAUX