Charles Bukowski correspondence

Charles Henry Bukowski was born Heinrich Karl Bukowski in Andernach, Germany on August 16, 1920. As a toddler, he and his family immigrated to the United States, and Bukowski spent his childhood growing up in Los Angeles. He would go on to attend Los Angeles City College from 1939 to 1941 before eventually leaving school to pursue a career in writing.

During this time, Bukowski worked a variety of jobs while trying to start a career in writing. He saw little success in the publishing world however and took a decade hiatus from writing, only occasionally publishing works here and there, and taking to heavy drinking. After suffering from a near-fatal bleeding ulcer, Bukowski began writing again and publishing his poetry predominately in small underground presses, such as Gallows, Nomad, and Hearse Press, the same press that published Bukowski's first chapbook of poetry, Flower, Fist, and Bestial Wail. Bukowski's work invoked depraved metropolitan setting and featured downtrodden members of American society, often centering heavily around a roughly autobiographical figure, Henry Chinaski. Bukowski's use of direct language, violent and sexual imagery, and depiction of women in his writing often invoked controversy. In 1969, Bukowski once again pursued full-time writing through the support of Black Sparrow Press, the publisher for much of his subsequent major works. Bukowski would also continue to support small presses throughout the rest of his career by submitting many poems and short stories to independent presses. Bukowski's bibliography includes over forty-five chapbooks of poetry and prose, many published posthumously, as well as six novels, including Post Office, Factotum, Women, Ham on Rye, Hollywood, and Pulp. During his life, Bukowski won a National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1974, a Loujon Press Award, and a Silver Reel Award from the San Francisco Festival of the Arts for his work on a documentary film. Charles Bukowski died in San Pedro, California on March 9, 1994,

[Information taken from Gale Literature’s biography of Charles Bukowski at Contemporary Authors.]