He also worked in a dog biscuit factory, a slaughterhouse, a cake and cookie factory, and he hung posters in New York City subways.īukowski published his first story when he was twenty-four and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. 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 clerk, parking lot attendant, Red Cross orderly, and elevator operator. After he developed a bleeding ulcer, he decided to take up writing again. 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. He attended Los Angeles City College from 1939 to 1941, then left school and moved to New York City to become a writer. At the age of three, he came with his family to the United States and grew up in Los Angeles. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty booksĬharles Bukowski was the only child of an American soldier and a German mother. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles.It is marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women and the drudgery of work. Henry Charles Bukowski (born as Heinrich Karl Bukowski) was a German-born American poet, novelist and short story writer.

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