Fire Card

The poetry and novels of Charles Bukowski (1920 – 1994) depict his loves— booze, Los Angeles, and women (or at least his idea of them)— with a gritty authenticity. Though he was largely ignored by American literary critics in his lifetime, Bukowski has become a posthumous pop-culture icon, due in part to his shambolic, give-no-fucks personal style. Though he has been criticized as a chauvinist (among other things), his writings honestly reflect the realities of working-class life.