Charles Bukowski (August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994), American poet and novelist, was born in Andernach, Germany and moved to Los Angeles, California three years later. He lived there much of his life.

He acknowledged Anton Chekhov, Ernest Hemingway, John Fante, Louis-Ferdinand Céline and others as influences on his writing, and was also knowledgeable about classical music. He was extremely prolific, publishing over 40 books of poetry and prose between 1960 and the early 1990s.

One critic described Bukowski's fiction as a "detailed depiction of a certain taboo male fantasy: the uninhibited bachelor, slobby, anti-social, and utterly free." [1]

Bukowski spent much of his life among the denizens of Hollywood's underbelly, and he was a long-term functional alcoholic. One of his poems describes his enjoyment of having a medical checkup at which he found that his drinking had had no perceptible effect on his health.

Contents

1 In film 2 Books by Charles Bukowski 3 Books about Charles Bukowski 4 See also

In film

The film Barfly, starring Mickey Rourke and written by Bukowski himself, was based on his life, the main character being his alter-ego, Henry Chinaski. His novel Hollywood was based on the tribulations of making this film.

A documentary called Bukowski: Born Into This was released in American theaters on July 9, 2004, generally to good reviews. Actor Sean Penn as well as musicians Tom Waits and Bono, friends and fans of Bukowski, appear in the film.

An adaptation of Bukowski's second novel, Factotum, was shot in Minnesota in 2004 and premiered 2005-04-12 at the Kosmorama film festival in Trondheim, Norway . It was directed by Bent Hamer, and Matt Dillon plays the role of Henry Chinaski (Bukowski's chosen name for his autobiographical character in a number of novels).

Books by Charles Bukowski

• Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail (1960)
• Longshot Pomes for Broke Players (1962)
• Run with the Hunted (1962)
• It Catches My Heart in Its Hand (1963)
• grip the walls (1964)
• Crucifix in a Deathhand (1965)
• Cold Dogs in the Courtyard (1965)
• Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts (1965)
• night's work (1966)
• The Genius of the Crowd (1966)
• All the Assholes in the World and Mine (1966)
• At Terror Street and Agony Way (1968)
• Poems Written Before Jumping out of an 8 Story Window (1968)
• Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969)
• A Bukowski Sampler (1969)
• if we take (1969)
• Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (1969)
• Another Academy (1970)
• Fire Station (1970)
• Post Office (1971) ISBN 0876850875
• Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness (1972)
• Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck (1972)
• me and your sometimes love poems (1972)
• South of No North (1973)
• 55 beds in the same direction (1974)
• Burning in Water Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973 (1974)
• Factotum (1975)
• The Last Poem & Tough Company (1976)
• Scarlet (1976)
• Art (1977)
• Love is a Dog from Hell (1977)
• You Kissed Lilly (1978)
• Women (1978)
• Legs, Hips and Behind (1978)
• A Love Poem (1979)
• Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit (1979)
• Shakespeare Never Did This (1979)
• Dangling in the Tournefortia (1981)
• The Last Generation (1982)
• Ham on Rye (1982)
• Horsemeat (1982)
• Sparks (1983)
• Bring Me Your Love (illustrated by Robert Crumb) (1983) ISBN 0876856067
• Hot Water Music (1983)
• The Bukowski/Purdy Letters (1983)
• One For The Old Boy (1984)
• There's No Business (illustrated by Robert Crumb) (1984)
• War All the Time: Poems 1981-1984 (1984)
• Horses Don't Bet on People and Neither Do I (1984)
• Going Modern (1984)
• Alone In A Time Of Armies (1985)
• The Wedding (1986)
• Gold In Your Eye (1986)
• The Day it Snowed in L.A. (1986)
• You Get So Alone at Times It Just Makes Sense (1986)
• Relentless As The Tarantula (1986)
• Luck (1987)
• The Movie "Barfly" (1987)
• The Movie Critics (1988)
• Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946-1966 (1988)
• Beauti-Ful (1988)
• Red (1989)
• If You Let Them Kill You They Will (1989)
• Hollywood (1989)
• We Ain't Got No Money Honey (1989)
• Septuagenarian Stew: Stories and Poems (1990)
• Not Quite Bernadette (1990)
• This (1990)
• Darkness & Ice (1990)
• In The Morning And At Night (1991)
• In The Shadow Of The Rose (1991)
• People Poems (1991)
• Now (1992)
• Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992)
• Three Poems (1992)
• Those Marvelous Lunches (1993)
• Run with the Hunted: A Charles Bukowski Reader (1993)
• Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters 1960-1970 (1993)
• Between The Earthquake (1993)
• Pulp (1994)
• Confession Of A Coward (1995)
• Shakespeare Never Did This (augmented edition) (1995)
• Heat Wave (1995)
• Living on Luck: Selected Letters 1960s-1970s, Volume 2 (1995)
• The Laughing Heart (1996)
• Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories (1996)
• A New War (1997)
• Bone Palace Ballet (1997)
• The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (1998)
• To Lean Back Into It (1998)
• The Singer (1999)
• Reach for the Sun: Selected Letters 1978-1994, Volume 3 (1999)
• What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire (1999)
• Popcorn In The Dark (2000)
• Open All Night (2000)
• Pink Silks (2001)
• Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski and Sheri Martinelli 1960-1967 (2001)
• the night torn mad with footsteps (2001)
• The Simple Truth (2002)
• Sifting Through The Madness for the Word, The Line, The Way: New Poems (2003) ISBN 00600568232
• The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain: New Poems (2004) ISBN 0060577010
• Slouching Toward Nirvana (2005)

Books about Charles Bukowski

• Jory Sherman - Bukowski: Friendship, Fame & Bestial Myth - 1981
• Neeli Cherkowski - Bukowski - A Life - 1991
• Russell Harrison - Against The American Dream - 1994
• Amber O'Neil - Blowing My Hero http://www.etext.org/Zines/F5/Books.html - 1995
• A.D. Winans - The Charles Bukowski/Second Coming Years - 1996
• Gerald Locklin - Charles Bukowski: A Sure Bet - 1996
• Steve Richmond - Spinning Off Bukowski - 1996
• Gay Brewer - Charles Bukowski - 1997
• John Thomas - Bukowski In The Bathtub - 1997
• Jim Christy - The Buk Book - 1997
• Ann Menebroker - Surviving Bukowski - 1998
• Carlos Polimeni - Bukowski For Beginners - 1998
• Howard Sounes - Charles Bukowski. Locked in the arms of a crazy life - 1998
• Gundolf S. Freyermuth - That's it. - 2000
• Aubrey Malone - the hunchback of east hollywood - 2003
• Ben Pleasants - Visceral Bukowski - 2004

See also

• Black Mountain Poets