Robert Maynard Pirsig (born September 6, 1928) is a popular American novelist. His first book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (1974), outlines his philosophy of the Metaphysics of Quality over the mostly-autobiographical story of a man's motorcycle trip across the country. The book remains a popular title to this day; in 1974 Pirsig was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work. Its followup, Lila: An Inquiry into Morals (1991), further explores Pirsig's philosophies.
Pirsig received his B.A. from the University of Minnesota in 1950, having begun in 1943, flunked out, and returned. He then spent two years at the same university before attending Benares Hindu University in India to further explore Eastern philosophy. Supporting himself by taking freelance jobs and teaching freshman English, Pirsig spent 1960–1963 in and out of mental institutions following a mental breakdown; he was treated with shock therapy.
Pirsig has published little other than his two major works and avoids the public eye, frequently traveling around the Atlantic by boat, having lived in various places around the United States as well as Sweden and England. His late son, Chris, who played an important role in ZatAoMM, is by his first wife, Nancy, as well as another son, Ted. Pirsig divorced Nancy and married his second wife, Wendy, in 1978, with whom he has a daughter, Nell.
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