Alan Kaufman Presents New Memoir at Events in San Francisco Today

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Drunken Angel recounts with unvarnished candor the story of the alcoholism that took him to the brink of death, the PTSD that drove him to the edge of madness, and how his love for writing literally brought him back from the hell of his addictions to become one of the most powerful writers in America today. Son of a French Holocaust survivor, Kaufman was an alcoholic so mauled by his indulgences it's a marvel he was alive enough to get into recovery. His descent into the abyss takes readers from the street gangs of the Bronx to the intellectual centers of Manhattan; from the battlefields of Gaza and the West Bank, where he served in the Israeli army, to the punk rock nights of the East Village, and on poetry stages of Europe and San Francisco.

Kaufman was a force in the nascent spoken word poetry movement in New York and San Francisco, the editor of the bestselling Outlaw Books-The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, taught poetry to veterans at the SF County Jail in April 2013, and is the founder of the Free University of San Francisco.

He is also one of the people heading up the Allen Ginsberg Festival for the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco this July, and will moderate two panels on Ginsberg, "The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg" and "GInsberg, Whitman, Blake", and also as part of the CJM show, he is co-curating an event in honor of Ginsberg based on Ginsberg Beat esthetics and perspective called "Poetry Shabbat" in which poets will write original poems to perform as part of the Shabbat service and held in a Queer San Francisco Synagogie, Temple Shaar Zahav.

Drunken Angel probes the consciousness of an addict, exposing in fierce detail the true depths of alcoholism, as well as the power, pitfalls and joy of a clean and sober life. Kaufman's journey is inspiring - for those who suffer from the disease, as well as for those who love them. He explores:
• PTSD from military service and other life traumas
• Alcoholism and the creative process
• Critical issues faced by second generation Holocaust survivors

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