Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado, and grew up in Springfield, Oregon, graduating from the University of Oregon in 1957. He began writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1960 after completing a graduate fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University; the novel was an immediate commercial and critical success when published two years later. During this period, Kesey was used by the CIA without his knowledge in the Project MKULTRA involving hallucinogenic drugs (including mescaline and LSD), which was done to try to make people insane to put them under the control of interrogators.
Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado, and grew up in Springfield, Oregon, graduating from the University of Oregon in 1957 He began writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1960 after completing a graduate fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University; the novel was an immediate commercial and critical success when published two years later. During this period, Kesey was used by the CIA without his knowledge in the Project MKULTRA involving hallucinogenic drugs (including mescaline and LSD), which was done to try to make people insane to put them under the control of interrogators.