'Fear makes me a writer, fear and a lack of confidence'

Charles Bukowski chronicled the seedy underside of the city in which he spent most of his life, Los Angeles. His heroes were the panhandlers and hustlers, the drunks and the hookers, his beat the racetracks and strip joints and his inspiration a series of dead-end jobs in warehouses, offices and factories. It was in the evenings that he would put on a classical record, open a beer and begin to type...

Brought up by a violent father, Bukowski suffered childhood beatings before developing horrific acne and withdrawing into a moody adolescence. Much of his young life epitomised the style of the Beat generation - riding Greyhound buses, bumming around and drinking himself into a stupor. During his lifetime he published more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including the novelsPost Office, Factotum, WomenandPulp. His novels sold millions of copies worldwide in dozens of languages.

In this definitive biography Barry Miles, celebrated author ofJack Kerouac: King of the Beats, turns his attention to the exploits of this hard-drinking, belligerent wild man of literature.