Charles Bukowski

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Charles Bukowski

Author profile


born
in Andernach, Germany
August 16, 1920

died
March 09, 1994

gender
male

genre

influences


About this author

Charles Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany on August 16, 1920, the only child of an American soldier and a German mother. At the age of three, he came with his family to the United States and grew up in Los Angeles. He attended Los Angeles City College from 1939 to 1941, then left school and moved to New York City to become a writer. His lack of publishing success at this time caused him to give up writing in 1946 and spurred a ten-year stint of heavy drinking. After he developed a bleeding ulcer, he decided to take up writing again. He worked a wide range of jobs to support his writing, including dishwasher, truck driver and loader, mail carrier, guard, gas station attendant, stock boy, warehouse worker, shipping clerk, post office cl...more


Average rating: 4.03 · 191,556 ratings · 8,028 reviews · 254 distinct works · Similar authors
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More books by Charles Bukowski…
“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”
Charles Bukowski

“Do you hate people?

I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.”
Charles Bukowski, Barfly

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”
Charles Bukowski

Polls

Who is your favorite poet? (add to this list if needed)

 
  40 votes, 14.7%

 
  23 votes, 8.5%

Edgar Allan Poe (write-in)
 
  21 votes, 7.7%

Emily Dickinson
 
  16 votes, 5.9%

Robert Frost (write-in)
 
  15 votes, 5.5%

Sylvia Plath (write-in)
 
  14 votes, 5.1%

Pablo Neruda (write-in)
 
  10 votes, 3.7%

 
  8 votes, 2.9%

 
  7 votes, 2.6%

Walt Whitman (write-in)
 
  7 votes, 2.6%

 
  7 votes, 2.6%

william shakespear (write-in)
 
  6 votes, 2.2%

Rumi (write-in)
 
  6 votes, 2.2%

Rainer Maria Rilke (write-in)
 
  5 votes, 1.8%

T.S. Elliot (write-in)
 
  5 votes, 1.8%

William Blake (write-in)
 
  4 votes, 1.5%

Fernando Pessoa (write-in)
 
  4 votes, 1.5%

Dante (write-in)
 
  4 votes, 1.5%

Lord Alfred Tennyson (write-in)
 
  4 votes, 1.5%

D. H. Lawrence (write-in)
 
  4 votes, 1.5%

Dorothy Parker (write-in)
 
  4 votes, 1.5%

John Keats (write-in)
 
  3 votes, 1.1%

Federico García Lorca (write-in)
 
  3 votes, 1.1%

Charles Baudelaire (write-in)
 
  3 votes, 1.1%

 
  3 votes, 1.1%

anne sexton (write-in)
 
  2 votes, 0.7%

Seamus Heaney (write-in)
 
  2 votes, 0.7%

Hart Crane (write-in)
 
  2 votes, 0.7%

Andrea Gibson (write-in)
 
  2 votes, 0.7%

Dylan Thomas (write-in)
 
  2 votes, 0.7%

John Donne (write-in)
 
  2 votes, 0.7%

Wallace Stevens (write-in)
 
  2 votes, 0.7%

 
  2 votes, 0.7%

 
  2 votes, 0.7%

Ted Hughes (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Jack Kerouac (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Stephen Crane (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Lewis Carroll (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Ellen Hopkins (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

 
  1 vote, 0.4%

 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Geoffrey Chaucer (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Al Berto (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Dmitry Prigov (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Wisława Szymborska (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Mark Doty (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Mario Benedetti (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Arthur Rimbaud (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Alexander Pope (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Suheir Hammad (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

E.E. Cummings (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Hiroyuki Nishigaki (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Gwendolyn Brooks (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Philip Levine (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Rafał Wojaczek (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Gérard de Nerval (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

A. Kamalei (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

 
  1 vote, 0.4%

cesar vallejo (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

Percy Shelley (write-in)
 
  1 vote, 0.4%

 
  0 votes, 0.0%

 
  0 votes, 0.0%

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