Arrested for Selling Howl: The Shig Murao Story

Ferlinghetti & Shig in the basement of City Lights. Photo by Burt Glinn
Ferlinghetti & Shig in the basement of City Lights. Photo by Burt Glinn

Soon after Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin opened the City Lights Pocket Book Shop in 1953, they hired Shigeyoshi Murao as their first clerk. Shig was young and charismatic, with an infectious geniality that became as integral a part of the bookstore’s culture as the paperbound volumes on its shelves.

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