Charles Bukowski

Henry Charles Bukowski was born in  Andernach, Rhine Province, Prussia, Weimar Republic (present-day Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany), on 16 August 1920. He was a German-born American poet, novelist, and short story writer.

His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles. His work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over 60 books. The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column, Notes of a Dirty Old Man, in the LA underground newspaper Open City.

Since his death in March 9, 1994, Bukowski has been the subject of a number of critical articles and books about both his life and writings, despite his work having received relatively little attention from academic critics during his lifetime.

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)