Charles Bukowski
| Charles Bukowski | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Heinrich Karl Bukowski August 16, 1920 Andernach, Rhineland-Palatinate, Weimar Republic |
| Died | March 9, 1994 (aged 73) San Pedro, California, U.S. |
| Nationality | German-American |
| Occupation | Poet, novelist, short story writer, and columnist |
| Movement | Dirty realism,transgressive fiction |
Henry Charles Bukowski (born Heinrich Karl Bukowski; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-born American poet, novelist, and short story writer.
His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles. His work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over 60 books. The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column, Notes of a Dirty Old Man, in the LA underground newspaper Open City.
In 1986 Time called Bukowski a "laureate of American lowlife". Regarding Bukowski's enduring popular appeal, Adam Kirsch of The New Yorker wrote, "the secret of Bukowski's appeal. . . [is that] he combines the confessional poet's promise of intimacy with the larger-than-life aplomb of a pulp-fiction hero."
Charles Bukowski was born as Heinrich Karl Bukowski in Andernach, Germany, to Heinrich (Henry) Bukowski, a German-American in the U.S. army of occupation after World War I who remained in Germany after his army service and Katharina (née Fett). His paternal grandfather Leonard Bukowski, an ethnic German, had immigrated to America from the German Empire in the 1880s. In Cleveland, Leonard met Emilie Krause, also a German, who had emigrated from Danzig, Germany (today Gdańsk, Poland). They married and settled in Pasadena. He worked as a carpenter, setting up his own very successful construction company. The couple had four children, including Heinrich (Henry), Charles Bukowski's father.
Bukowski's parents met in Andernach in Germany following World War I. The poet's father was German-American and a sergeant in the United States Army serving in Germany following Germany's defeat in 1918. He had an affair with Katharina, a German friend's sister, and she became pregnant. Charles Bukowski repeatedly claimed to be born out of wedlock, but Andernach marital records indicate that his parents married one month before his birth. Afterwards, Henry Bukowski became a building contractor, set to make great financial gains in the aftermath of the war, and after two years moved the family to Pfaffendorf. However, given the crippling reparations being required of Germany, which led to a stagnant economy and high levels of inflation, Henry Bukowski was unable to make a living, so he decided to move the family to the United States. On April 23rd, 1923, they sailed from Bremerhaven to Baltimore, Maryland, where they settled.
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