Shig Murao

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Shigeyoshi “Shig” Murao (December 8, 1926 – October 18, 1999) was a Japanese‑American bookseller and the manager of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. He is best known for being arrested in 1957 for selling Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, an event that helped shape First Amendment rights for published works.

Murao was born in Seattle, Washington, to a family with ties to Japan. His father, Shigekata Murao, came from a samurai family and moved the family between Seattle and Chiran, Japan. Shig and his twin sister Shizuko were born on December 8, 1926. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the family was interned at the Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho during World War II. In 1944, Shig joined the U.S. Military Intelligence Service and later worked as an interpreter in postwar Japan.

In 1953, City Lights founders Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin hired Murao as a clerk. He worked for the store without pay at first, then became the manager, a job he held until 1976. He helped create the welcoming atmosphere at City Lights and formed friendships with Beat writers such as Ginsberg, who often stayed at Murao’s apartment when visiting the Bay Area.

On June 3, 1957, Murao was arrested for selling Howl to an undercover officer. In the ensuing trial, Murao and Ferlinghetti faced separate charges for selling and publishing the book. Both were acquitted, and Howl was protected under the First Amendment, a ruling that opened doors for other controversial writers.

Murao was not a poet, but he played a key role in the San Francisco Beat scene and had a large circle of friends, including Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, and Richard Brautigan. He suffered a series of strokes starting in 1975. After leaving City Lights, he published a photocopied zine called Shig’s Review, producing about eighty issues over the years.

In 1984, his mother Ume died. To help raise money for bringing her ashes to Japan, Murao sold many of his early book editions. He joined his nephew on a trip to Nagasaki and Chiran to bury the family grave and visit important ancestral sites.

In the 1990s, Murao moved to an assisted living home in Palo Alto, California, but he still spent time in North Beach, visiting cafes and bookstores in an electric wheelchair. After an accident, he moved to a convalescent hospital in Cupertino, where he died on October 18, 1999, at the age of 72.