On Writing - Hardcover

Bukowski, Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062396005 ISBN 13: 9780062396006

Publisher: Ecco, 2015

Synopsis

Sharp and moving reflections and ruminations on the artistry and craft of writing from one of our most iconoclastic, riveting, and celebrated masters.

Charles Bukowski’s stories, poems, and novels have left an enduring mark on our culture. In this collection of correspondence—letters to publishers, editors, friends, and fellow writers—the writer shares his insights on the art of creation.

On Writing reveals an artist brutally frank about the drudgery of work and canny and uncompromising about the absurdities of life—and of art. It illuminates the hard-edged, complex humanity of a true American legend and counterculture icon—the “laureate of American lowlife” (Time)—who stoically recorded society’s downtrodden and depraved. It exposes an artist grounded in the visceral, whose work reverberates with his central ideal: “Don't try.”

Piercing, poignant, and often hilarious, On Writing is filled not only with memorable lines but also with Bukowski’s trademark toughness, leavened with moments of grace, pathos, and intimacy.

About this title

About the Author

Charles Bukowsk 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 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 at the age of thirty-five. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp.

From the Back Cover

Sharp and moving reflections and ruminations on the artistry and craft of writing from one of our most iconoclastic, pivoting, and celebrated masters.

Charles Bukowski's stories, poems, and novels have left an enduring mark on our culture. In this collection of previously unpublished material'letters to publishers, editors, friends, and fellow writers'Bukowski shares his insights on the art of creation.

On Writing reveals an artist brutally frank about the drudgery of work and canny and uncompromising about the absurdities of life'and of art. It illuminates the hard-edged, complex humanity of a true American legend and countercultural icon'the "laureate of American lowlife" (Time)'who stoically recorded society's downtrodden and depraved. It exposes an artist grounded in the visceral, whose work reverberates with his central ideal: "Don't try."

Piercing, poignant, and often hilarious, On Writing is filled not only with memorable lines but also with Bukowski's trademark toughness, leavened with moments of grace, pathos, and intimacy.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ecco
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0062396005
• ISBN 13: 9780062396006
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208