Charles Bukowski

This is the 11th post in our Author of the Week series.



Charles Bukowski was born in 1920 in Germany. In 1923 after the collapse of the German economy Charles and his family moved to teh United States.

At the age of 14 he published his first short story entitled "Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip." Two years later he published another story "20 Tanks From Kasseldown" was published. It was after this that he became disillusioned with the publishing world and stopped writing for nearly a decade. It was during this time that he worked a variety of jobs and stayed in cheap rooming houses.

In 1955 he was sent to the hospital with a bleeding ulcer and it was after this that he began writing poetry. In 1957 he agreed to marry poet Barbara Frye sight unseen but the couple divorced in 1959. After the divorce Charles continued drinking and writing poetry.

In 1960 he went to work for the Post Office where he continued to work for a decade. In 1962 he was deeply affected by the death of his first true love Jane Cooney Baker. He continued writing and had some of his poetry published and eventually earned his own column "Notes from a dirty Old Man."

In 1969 he received a publishing deal from Black Sparrow Press and decided to quit his job with the Post Office and focus on full time writing. A month later he finished his first novel Post Office. He continued writing about his life and his affairs with women. He even started to have a number of one-night stands and romantic affairs which provided inspiration for his books.

He wrote 6 more books before his death in 1994 and all of them were published with Black Sparrow Press. But he submitted short stories and poetry to thousands of publications.

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