Evergreen Review Live Events, Book Seized and Censored
AUTHOR PAT THOMAS’ SEQUEL TO ALLEN GINSBERG, BLACK PANTHERS AND YIPPIE BOOKS HAS BEEN SEIZED BY CHINESE GOVERNMENT
Evergreen Review Magazine: Dispatches from the Literary Underground: Covers & Essays 1957-1973 Released May 30
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LOS ANGELES, CA. (TUESDAY MARCH 4, 2025) – Author and historian Pat Thomas has dedicated the past decade chronicling the 1960s-70s counterculture with his books about the Black Panthers, Jerry Rubin & Abbie Hoffman, and Allen Ginsberg. His latest book, Evergreen Review Magazine: Dispatches from the Literary Underground: Covers & Essays 1957-1973 set for release on May 30, 2025 was recently seized by the Chinese government where it was being printed for being politically radical (Ginsberg, Black Panthers, Vietnam War content) and is now being reprinted in India.
Why was the book seized? Censorship is a theme in this book – as it discusses the court cases of the 1960s in which the United States government attempted to ban these books; Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch and Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. Also on this banned book list was the Autobiography of Malcolm X and Che Guevara’s diaries. All of these manuscripts were published by Barney Rosset’s Grove Press and/or excerpted in his magazine Evergreen Review. The pressing plant in China literally stopped the presses at the behest of Chinese government inspectors. Doesn’t this sound like something the current American administration would try to do?
The censored book includes the counterculture figures mentioned above and more, including essays from 1966-68 on Sun Ra, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, plus a 1968 deep dive by Paul Williams (founder of Crawdaddy magazine) on The Who, Kinks, Doors, Beach Boys, Byrds, Donovan that is quite illuminating.
For those unfamiliar, from the late 1950s to the mid-70s, work by contributors like Judith Malina, Bernadette Devlin, Germaine Greer, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, David Amram, Amiri Baraka, Eldridge Cleaver, Julius Lester, Tim Leary, Dennis Hopper, Jean Genet, and Jerry Rubin appeared in the countercultural magazine Evergreen Review. Their subversive work and radical politics defined outsider literature for an entire generation. Edited by Barney Rosset of Grove Press, Evergreen Review was a quarterly illustrated/photography driven reflection of that genre.
For the first time ever since their original print date, full-color reproductions of the front covers of all 100 issues of the Evergreen Review from 1957 to 1973, plus hundreds of pages from many of the issues are reprinted exactly as they looked then – with illustrations, photography, even the ads for other books, albums, letters to the editor, subscription offers, etc. – left intact!
Pat Thomas interviewed 1960s era Evergreen staffers to get the inside scoop on the operation of the magazine, and those conversations join new essays looking at this golden era by John Oakes, Loren Glass, Kasia Boddy, Dale Peck, Ethan Persoff, Ken Jordan, and Stanley Gontarski.
Censorship and more will be discussed at these live in person events:
**Friday May 9th Book Soup; Los Angeles (7 pm)
– Pat Thomas with author Jessica Hundley Taschen & renowned illustrator Jess Rotter
**Tuesday May 13th City Lights; San Francisco (7 pm)
– Pat Thomas with editor/publisher Steve Wasserman Heyday Books
**Friday May 16th Elliot Bay Books; Seattle (7 pm)
– Pat Thomas with editor/publisher Gary Groth Fantagraphics
**Wednesday May 21st PT Knitwear; New York City (7 pm) – Pat Thomas with Steven Heller; graphic design maverick for New York Times, Evergreen Review editor/publisher John Oakes Evergreen Review, OR books journalist/author Joe Hagan Vanity Fair staff, Rolling Stone magazine biography
**Saturday May 24th Tres Gatos; Boston (1 pm)
– Pat Thomas with graphic artist Darryl Norsen Light In The Attic records
Ryan Walsh musician, author of Astral Weeks 1968
**Tuesday June 3rd Burley Fisher; London England (7 pm)
– Pat Thomas with John Oakes editor/publisher Evergreen Review, OR books
Stephen Coates Bureau of Lost Culture podcast
Kasia Boddy scholar, contributor to Evergreen Review book
Pat’s previous overstuffed visually enticing books retail at $50, he took a cut in fees and royalties to keep this one at a reasonable $34.99 retail price.
PDF review copies available by request.
Evergreen Review:
Dispatches from the Literary Underground: Covers & Essays 1957-1973
Edited by Pat Thomas – published by Fantagraphics Books
320 pages, Hardcover, Full Color
$34.99, ISBN: 9798875000676
Distributed in America by Norton, in the UK via Turnaround
Catalog Listing: https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/dispatches-from-the-literary-underground-evergreen-review-magazine-covers-1957-1973
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For More Information, please contact Joshua Mills, It’s Alive! Media,
323-464-6314, josh@itsalivemedia.com, www.itsalivemedia.com
