George Leite was a California author, poet, publisher and bookstore owner active in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1940s and 1950s. Born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1920, he was raised in the then Portuguese-American enclave of San Leandro, California and died in 1985 in Walnut Creek, California.

Leite was the founder of Daliel's Bookstore

Daliel's Bookstore

George Leite opened daliel's on the 2400 block of Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California, as a combination bookstore and art gallery in 1945. The store was also the home of Circle Magazine and Circle Editions, the publishing ventures Leite established at the same time...

 (always with a lowercase 'd') on the 2400 block of Telegraph Avenue

Telegraph Avenue

Telegraph Avenue is a street that begins, at its southernmost point, in the midst of the historic downtown district of Oakland, California, USA, and ends, at its northernmost point, at the southern edge of the University of California campus in Berkeley, California...

 in Berkeley, California, where he published Circle Magazine

Circle Magazine

Circle Magazine was published from 1945 to 1951 by George Leite, initially with poet Bern Porter. Produced at Leite's Berkeley, California bookstore, Daliel's , it featured poetry, prose, criticism and art from many of those whose creative works and their successors would later come to called the...

. Many of the important regional writers of the period such as Kenneth Rexroth

Kenneth Rexroth

Kenneth Rexroth was an American poet, translator and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement...

 were published by him, and his store was the site of concerts by Harry Partch

Harry Partch

Harry Partch was an American composer and instrument creator. He was one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively and systematically with microtonal scales, writing much of his music for custom-made instruments that he built himself, tuned in 11-limit just intonation.-Early...

 and exhibitions by Jean Varda

Jean Varda

Jean Varda was an artist. He was of mixed Greek and French descent...

. He lived for a while in Henry Miller

Henry Miller

Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...

's cabin on the Big Sur coast.

External links

• Circle History, from Varda's ferryboat's website