Lawrence Ferlinghetti (born Lawrence Ferling on March 24, 1919) is an American poet an painter, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. Author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, and film narration, he is best known for A coney island of the mind (New York: New Directions, 1958), a collection of poems that has been translated into nine languages, with sales of over 1,000,000 copies.