"Read by Bukowski, the works take on greater magnitude from the intensity of his soft, almost calm voice... Stunning."-- "Houston Daily Cougar"
Charles Bukowski is one of America’s best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in 1920 in Andernach, Germany, to an American soldier father and a German mother, and brought to the United States at the age of two. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for over fifty years. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp.
Abel Debritto, a former Fulbright scholar and current Marie Curie fellow, works in the digital humanities. He is the author of Charles Bukowski, King of the Underground, and the editor of the Bukowski collections On Writing, On Cats, and On Love.
Charles Bukowski is one of America’s best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in 1920 in Andernach, Germany, to an American soldier father and a German mother, and brought to the United States at the age of two. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for over fifty years. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp.
Abel Debritto, a former Fulbright scholar and current Marie Curie fellow, works in the digital humanities. He is the author of Charles Bukowski, King of the Underground, and the editor of the Bukowski collections On Writing, On Cats, and On Love.
The late Charles Bukowski's best-known work is the screenplay for BARFLY, the relentlessly hopeless self-portrait of seedy denizens of a seedy pub. Aficionados know his poetry and short stories, which reflect his scrappy, hard-drinking life in the duskier quarters of Los Angeles. Since his death in 1993, his stature as the bard of dissipation has spread to the mainstream literati. This recording presents him at 65, unlaundered, profane, in his living room, bantering with his producers and wife as he records a selection of his work. Whether or not he reads well is beside the point; this is a fascinating portrait of the artist as an old drunk. The sound quality is immaculate, the side comments revealing. Producer John Runette teases a great deal of personality out of his subject. Totally unique. Y.R. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine