SOURCE: Kesey, Ken, and Robert Faggen. “Ken Kesey: The Art of Fiction CXXVI.” Paris Review 35, no. 130 (spring 1994): 58-94.

In the following interview, originally conducted during several visits between 1992 and 1993, Kesey discusses his literary influences, his relationship with the Beat writers, the effects of drugs on his writings, the cultural influence of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, the nature of evil and terror in America, and popular American culture.

Ken Kesey was born in Colorado in 1935. His father, a rancher and outdoorsman, moved the family to Oregon in 1943. Kesey attended the University of Oregon, where he became a champion wrestler. After graduating, he received a Stegner fellowship from Stanford and studied fiction under Malcolm Cowley, Wallace Stegner and Frank O'Connor. His classmates included Ken Babbs, Larry McMurtry and Robert Stone. Kesey's first novel, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, was published in 1962, followed by Sometimes a Great Notion...