Rosenthal, Irving, 1912–2008.

Born in 1930, American editor and author Irving Rosenthal is counted among the Beats, a group of young writers in the 50s and 60s known for their bohemian lifestyles and rebellion against the then popular art forms. Though he published only one major novel, Sheeper , and has not been remembered as a major Beat writer, American novelist and poet Gilbert Sorrentino in a 1994 interview with Alexander Laurence cited Rosenthal as one of the most compelling of the Beats.

Before writing Sheeper, Rosenthal edited the Chicago Review. He was responsible for publishing the first chapters ever offered of William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, which he edited with Allen Ginsberg. When the Chicago Review issue containing those chapters was censored, Rosenthal left the Chicago Review and founded Big Table . He stayed long enough to publish the censored issue; he then left Big Table to Paul Carroll’s control and moved to Morocco in 1963.

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