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    Bukowski For Beginners
    Bukowski For Beginners
    Bukowski For Beginners
    Ebook186 pages1 hour

    Bukowski For Beginners

    By Carlos Polimeni and Miguel Rep

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    Charles Bukowski, poet, novelist, short-story writer, journalist, and cult figure of the dissident and rebellious was born in Germany in 1920 and died in the USA in 1994. During his life he was hailed as "laureate of American lowlife" by Time magazine literary critic 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 largerthan-life aplomb of a pulp-fiction hero."

    Bukowski was one of the most unconventional writers and cultural critics of the 20th century. He lived an unorthodox, idiosyncratic life and wrote in a style that was unique—one that is impossible to classify or categorize. His work was at times cynical or humorous, but was always brilliant and challenging. His life and work are distinguished not only by a remarkable talent for words, but also by his rejection of the dominant social and cultural values of American society. Bukowski began writing at the age of forty and published forty-five books, six of them novels. He is also considered one of the great literary voices of Los Angeles.

    In Bukowski For Beginners, playwright Carlos Polimeni evaluates the life and literary achievements of the cult writer whose voice of dissidence and discontent is still heard and appreciated by readers worldwide.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFor Beginners
    Release dateApr 7, 2015
    ISBN9781939994387
    Bukowski For Beginners
    Author

    Carlos Polimeni

    Carlos Polimeni is a journalist, writer, screenwriter, and television and radio host in Argentina. A journalist since 1978, he has worked in television, radio, magazines, news agencies, and newspapers, and has published twelve books on topics of their specialty. He also wrote plays and screenplays.

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      Book preview

      Bukowski For Beginners - Carlos Polimeni

      For Beginners LLC

      155 Main Street, Suite 211

      Danbury, CT 06810 USA

      www.forbeginnersbooks.com

      Text © 2000 Carlos Polimeni

      Illustrations © 2000 Miguel Rep

      This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

      A For Beginners® Documentary Comic Book

      Originally published by Writers and Readers, Inc.

      Copyright © 2000

      Cataloging-in-Publication information is available from the Library of Congress.

      ISBN # 978-1-939994-37-0 Trade

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      For Beginners® and Beginners Documentary Comic Books® are published by For Beginners LLC.

      First Edition

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      www.redwheelweiser.com

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      Contents

      1 Kindergarten

      2 Poetics and the Bleeding Life

      3 Running in the Cage

      4 I Don't Know Who I Am

      5 Blood on the Line

      6 Post Office

      7 A Duel to the Death

      8 Europe

      9 A Taste of Honey, Then the Knife

      10 Hollywood

      11 An Old Writer with a Yellow Notebook

      Index

      Bibliography

      1 Kindergarten

      ‘I am not primarily a poet, I hate god gooey damned people poets messing the smears of their lives against the sniveling world...what I write, is only one tenth of myself—the other 9/to hell tenths are looking over the edge of a cliff down into the sea of rock and wringing swirl and cheap damnation...’

      Though Henry Charles Bukowski has achieved ‘cult’ status as a writer, and acquired a world-wide following, he is rarely ranked amongst the literary greats by academics and critics. Bukowski, in their eyes, remains a controversial writer.

      Perhaps the lack of establishment recognition is due partly to Bukowski's decadent, dangerous image, his refusal to conform to political correctness (I am the outsider') and partly to the fact that he was born in Germany.

      And experts in German literature, consider Bukowski to be an American writer. Not surprising, since he wrote only in English and, like an Olympian god, ignored whatever was happening in the rest of the world. He was concerned primarily with his own world, his been own private hell: ‘I have always one of those people who do everything wrong. This is essentially because I am not involved in the march’.

      His father, Henry Bukowski, found himself in Germany as an enlisted soldier, one of many sent over by the US at the end of World War I.

      Henry senior was the son of a German, Leonard Bukowski, who had emigrated to America at the end of the 19th century. There, in Cleveland, he married another German immigrant, Emilie Krause. They set up home in Pasadena and had six children. So, unlike many other American soldiers, Henry Bukowski did not consider Germany to be hell. It was his fatherland. Through one of her brothers, Henry met Katherine Fett, who worked in a bar. He was very tall, she very short. Katherine became his second wife and they lived in Germany until their only son, Charles, was two years old. They moved to the US and, in 1925, settled in Los Angeles.

      Bukowski's failure to adapt

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