City Lights Hosting 100th Birthday Celebration for Lawrence Ferlinghetti

City Lights Booksellers & Publishers in San Francisco, Calif., is hosting an open house on Sunday, March 24, to celebrate co-founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti's 100th birthday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

From 1 to 5 p.m. on the 24th, City Lights will host a party open to the public. At the same time, three other businesses in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood--the Canessa Gallery, Cafe Zoetrope and Vesuvio's--will host celebrations in honor of Ferlinghetti, and the city's mayor has officially proclaimed March 24 Lawrence Ferlinghetti Day.

In addition to the events on March 24, there will be a variety of events throughout the month: March 1-28 the Canessa Gallery will show "Ferlinghetti in Photographs," and March 2-April 27 the Rena Bransten Gallery will hold a solo show of Ferlinghetti's work. On March 21, City Lights will host a release party for Ferlinghetti's Little Boy (Doubleday); the Roxie Theater will screen Chris Felver's documentary Ferlinghetti on March 23; and on March 26, City Lights will host another release party, this time for Ronald Collins and David Skover's The People v. Ferlinghetti: The Fight to Publish Allen Ginsberg's HOWL (Rowman & Littlefield).

Ferlinghetti co-founded City Lights in 1953. In 1957, he was put on trial for publishing Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl." His new book, Little Boy, is an autobiographical novel, and writers Armistead Maupin, Joyce Carol Oates and Andrew Sean Greer are among those expected to attend the launch at City Lights.

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