'The thing about Bukowski is, when you read what he has to say, he's right.' - Sean Penn 'We all knew Bukowski was a tough guy, but who would have guessed that even the grave could not shut him up?' - Billy Collins 'Full of sad, hilarious lamentation and schadenfreude. As usual, not for the kiddies. But for the adults, God, yes.' - Booklist 'In an age of conformity Bukowski wrote about the people nobody wanted to be: the ugly, the selfish, the lonely, the mad.' - Observer

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 Andernach, Germany, and brought to the United States at the age of three. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for fifty years. He published his first story in 1944, when he was twenty-four, and began writing poetry when he was thirty-five. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age seventy-three.