Born Heinrich Karl Bukowski in Andernach, Germany, to Heinrich Bukowski and Katharina Fett. His mother was a native German and his father was a Polish-American soldier, who met when World War I had ended. Bukowski's parents were Roman Catholic. He often claimed to be an illegitimate child; however Andernach marital records indicate that his parents married one month prior to his birth.

Due to the collapse of the German economy following the end of World War I, the family emigrated to the United States in 1923, and originally settled in Baltimore, Maryland. Wanting a more Anglophone name, Bukowski's parents began addressing him as "Henry" and altered the pronunciation of the family name from Boo-kov-ski () to Boo-cow-ski (; the surname is of Slavic origin). The family settled in South Central Los Angeles in 1930, the city his father's family originated from. During Bukowski's childhood, his father was often unemployed, and Bukowski claimed that his father was a violent alcoholic who abused him and his mother, as described in his novel Ham on Rye.

During his youth, Bukowski was socially inept and withdrawn, a condition later exacerbated by an extreme case of acne. Who is Charles Bukowski? Neighbour children ridiculed his German accent and the clothing his parents made him wear.

In his early teens Bukowski had an epiphany when he was introduced to alcohol by his friend William "Baldy" Mullinax, son of an alcoholic surgeon. "This [alcohol] is going to help me for a very long time," he later wrote, describing the genesis of his chronic alcoholism; or, as he saw it, the genesis of a method he could utilise to come to more amicable terms with his own life.

After graduating from Los Angeles High School, Bukowski attended Los Angeles City College for two years, taking courses in art, journalism, and literature.

On July 22, 1944, with World War II still raging, Bukowski was arrested by FBI agents in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he was living at the time, on suspicion of draft evasion and was held for 17 days in Philadelphia's Moyamensing Prison. Sixteen days later he failed a physical psychological exam and was given a Selective Service Class of 4-F (unfit for military service).

At 24, Bukowski's short story "Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip" was published in Story magazine. Two years later, another short story, "20 Tanks from Kasseldown", was published by the Black Sun Press in Issue III of An Intercontinental Quarterly, a limited-run, loose-leaf broadside collection printed in 1946 and edited by Caresse Crosby. Failing to break into the literary world, Bukowski grew disillusioned with the publication process and quit writing for almost a decade, a time that he referred to as a "ten-year-drunk." These "lost years" formed the basis for his later autobiographical chronicles, although the veracity of his accounts has been frequently called into question. During part of this period he continued living in Los Angeles, working at a pickle factory for a short time, but also spent some time roaming about the United States, working sporadically and staying in cheap rooming houses. In the early 1950s Bukowski took a job as a letter carrier with the U.S. Postal Service in Los Angeles, but resigned just before he reached three years service.

In 1955, he was hospitalised for a bleeding ulcer which was nearly fatal. When he left the hospital, he began to write poetry. In 1957, he agreed to marry small-town Texas poet Barbara Frye, sight unseen, but they divorced in 1959. Frye insisted that their separation had nothing to do with literature, though she often doubted his skill as a poet. According to Howard Sounes's Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life she later died under mysterious circumstances in India. Following his divorce, Bukowski continued drinking and writing poetry.

By 1960 he had returned to the post office in Los Angeles, where he continued to work as a letter filing clerk for over a decade. In 1962 Bukowski was traumatised by the death of Jane Cooney Baker. She had been his first real romantic attachment. Bukowski turned his grief and devastation into a series of poems and stories lamenting her passing. Jane is considered to be the greatest love of his life and was the most important in a long series of 'Muses' who inspired his writing, according to biographers Jory Sherman, Souness, Brewer, and Harrison. In 1964, a daughter, Marina Louise Bukowski, was born to Bukowski and his then live-in girlfriend Frances Smith, whom he fondly referred to as a "white-haired hippy", "shack-job" and "old snaggle-tooth".

Jon and Louise Webb, now recognised as giants of the post-war 'small-press movement', published The Outsider literary magazine and featured some of Bukowski's poetry. Under the Loujon Press imprint, they published Bukowski's It Catches My Heart In Its Hands (1963), and Crucifix in a Deathhand, in 1965.

Beginning in 1967, Bukowski wrote the column "Notes of A Dirty Old Man" for Los Angeles' Open City, an underground newspaper. When Open City was shut down in 1969, the column was picked up by the Los Angeles Free Press along with NOLA Express in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1969, Bukowski and his friend Neeli Cherkovski launched their own short-lived mimeographed literary magazine, Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns. They produced three issues over the next two years.

In 1969, he accepted an offer from Black Sparrow Press publisher John Martin and quit his post office job to dedicate himself to full-time writing. He was then 49 years old. As he explained in a letter at the time, "I have one of two choices — stay in the post office and go crazy ... or stay out here and play at writer and starve. I have decided to starve." Introduction to Charles Bukowski, by Jay Dougherty Less than one month after leaving the postal service, he finished his first novel, Post Office. As a measure of respect for Martin's financial support and faith in a then relatively unknown writer, Bukowski published almost all of his subsequent major work with Black Sparrow Press, although, an avid supporter of the small independent presses, he continued to submit poems and short stories to thousands of small presses until the time of his death.

With increasing notoriety and growing fame, Bukowski embarked on a series of love affairs and one-night stands. His most important relationships were with Linda King, a poet and sculptress. Critic Robert Peters viewed the debut of Linda King’s play The Tenant in which she and Bukowski starred back in the 70s in Los Angeles. This play was a one-off performance. His other affairs were with Liza Williams, a recording executive, and Pamela O'Brien, a red-headed single mother. All of these relationships provided material for his stories and poems. Another important relationship was with "Tanya", pseudonym of "Amber O'Neil" (also a pseudonym), described in Bukowski's "Women" as a pen-pal that evolved into a week-end tryst at Bukowski's modest DeLongpre residence in L.A. in the 1970s. "Amber O'Neil" later wrote a book about the affair entitled "Blowing My Hero". The book was not published due to inclusion of several love letters written by Bukowski.

In 1976, Bukowski met Linda Lee Beighle, a health food restaurant owner, aspiring actress and devotee of Meher Baba, who was the leader of an Indian religious society. Two years later, Bukowski moved from the East Hollywood area, where he had lived for most of his life, to the harbourside community of San Pedro, the southernmost district of the City of Los Angeles. Beighle followed him and they lived together intermittently over the next two years, Bukowski sometimes tiring (he said) of the relationship and sending her on her way. They were eventually married by Manly Palmer Hall, a Canadian-born author and mystic, in 1985. Beighle is referred to as "Sara" in Bukowski's novels Women and Hollywood.

Bukowski died of leukemia on March 9, 1994, in San Pedro, California, at the age of 73, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp. The funeral rites, orchestrated by his widow, were conducted by Buddhist monks. An account of the proceedings can be found in Gerald Locklin's book Charles Bukowski: A Sure Bet.

His gravestone reads: "Don't Try", a phrase which Bukowski uses in one of his poems, advising aspiring writers and poets about inspiration and creativity. Bukowski explained the phrase in a 1963 letter to John William Corrington:

In 2007 and 2008, there was a movement to save Bukowski's bungalow at 5124 De Longpre Ave. from destruction. The campaign was spearheaded by preservationist Lauren Everett. The cause was covered extensively in the local and international press, including a feature in Beatdom magazine, and was ultimately successful, with the bungalow listed as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument called Bukowski Court.The cause was criticised by some as cheapening Bukowski's "outsider' reputation.

Bukowski published extensively in small literary magazines and with small presses beginning in the early 1940s and continuing on through the early 1990s, with the poems and stories being later republished by Black Sparrow Press (now HarperCollins/ECCO) as collected volumes of his work. In the 1980s, he collaborated with illustrator Robert Crumb on a series of comic books, with Bukowski writing and Crumb providing the artwork.

Bukowski also performed live readings of his works, beginning in 1962 on radio station KPFK in Los Angeles and increasing frequency through the 1970s. He agreed to live readings as a source of income, but they took a toll on his writing and health. Heavy drinking was a featured part of the readings, along with a combative banter with the audience. By the late 1970s Bukowski's income was sufficient to give up live readings. His last international reading was given in October 1979 in Vancouver, BC, which was released on DVD as There's Gonna be a God Damn Riot in Here. In March 1980 he gave his very last reading at the Sweetwater club in Redondo Beach, which was released as Hostage on audio CD and The Last Straw on DVD.

Bukowski often spoke of Los Angeles as his favorite subject. In a 1974 interview he said, "You live in a town all your life, and you get to know every bitch on the street corner and half of them you have already messed around with. You've got the layout of the whole land. You have a picture of where you are.... Since I was raised in L.A., I've always had the geographical and spiritual feeling of being here. I've had time to learn this city. I can't see any other place than L.A."

One critic has described Bukowski's fiction as a "detailed depiction of a certain taboo male fantasy: the uninhibited bachelor, slobby, anti-social, and utterly free", an image he tried to live up to with sometimes riotous public poetry readings and boorish party behaviour. Boston Review: Since his death in 1994, Bukowski has been the subject of a number of critical articles and books about both his life and writings. His work has received relatively little attention from academic critics. ECCO continues to release new collections of his poetry, culled from the thousands of works published in small literary magazines. According to ECCO, the 2007 release The People Look Like Flowers At Last will be his final posthumous release as now all his once-unpublished work has been published. Amazon.com: The People Look Like Flowers At Last: New Poems: Charles Bukowski: Books

Bukowski: Born Into This, a film documenting the author's life, was released in 2003. It features contributions from Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Harry Dean Stanton and Bono (U2's song "Dirty Day" was dedicated to Charles Bukowski when released in 1993). Bukowski is known to have disliked Bono, calling him a "millionaire rock-star, a part of the establishment regardless of what he says".

In 1981, the Italian director Marco Ferreri made a film, Storie di ordinaria follia aka Tales of Ordinary Madness, based on the short stories of Bukowski. Ben Gazzara played the role of Bukowski's character. Bukowski was said to have disliked the film.

In 1987, the film Barfly was released, starring Mickey Rourke as Henry Chinaski (Bukowski) and Faye Dunaway as Wanda Wilcox (his lover). Sean Penn had offered to play the part of Chinaski (Bukowski) for as little as a dollar as long as his friend Dennis Hopper would provide direction. But the European director Barbet Schroeder had invested many years and thousands of dollars in the project and Bukowski felt Schroeder deserved to make it. Mickey Rourke was ultimately chosen to play Chinaski. During filming Bukowski said of Rourke; "Mickey Rourke is a real human guy, on and off the set. And in Barfly he really came through with the acting. I felt his enjoyment and inventiveness."

A film adaptation of Factotum, starring Matt Dillon, was released in 2005.

In June 2006, Bukowski's literary archive was donated by his widow to the Huntington Library, in San Marino, California. Copies of all editions of his work published by the Black Sparrow Press are held at Western Michigan University, which purchased the archive of the publishing house after its closure in 2003.

Novels

• Post Office (1971)
• Factotum (1975)
• Women (1978)
• Ham On Rye (1982)
• Barfly (script) (1984)
• Hollywood (1989)
• Pulp (1994)

Poetry

• Flower, Fist, and Bestial Wail (1960)
• Poems and Drawings (1962)
• Longshot Poems for Broke Players (1962)
• Run With the Hunted (1962)
• It Catches My Heart in its Hands (1963)
• Crucifix In A Deathhand (1965)
• Cold Dogs in the Courtyard (1965)
• The Genius of the Crowd (1966)
• 2 by Bukowski (1967)
• The Curtains are Waving (1967)
• At Terror Street and Agony Way (1968)
• Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 story Window (1965)
• A Bukowski Sampler (1969)
• The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (1969)
• Fire station (1970)
• Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (1972)
• Me and Your Sometimes Love Poems (1972)
• While the music played (1973)
• Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame (1974)
• Africa, Paris, Greece (1975)
• Scarlet (1976)
• Maybe Tomorrow (1977)
• Love is a Dog from Hell (1977)
• Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit (1979)
• Dangling in the Tournefortia (1982)
• War All the Time (1984)
• You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense (1986)
• The Roominghouse Madrigals (1988)
• Stories & Poems (1990)
• The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1996)
• Poems and Stories (1996)
• Bone Palace Ballet (1998)
• what matters most is how well you walk through the fire. (1999)
• Open All Night (2000)
• The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps (2001)
• Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way (2003)
• as Buddha smiles (2003)
• The Flash of the Lightning Behind the Mountain (2004)
• Slouching Toward Nirvana (2005)
• Come On In! (2006)
• The People Look Like Flowers At Last (2007)
• The Pleasures of the Damned (2007)
• The Continual Condition (2009)

Short story chapbooks and collections

• Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts (1965)
• All the Assholes in the World and Mine (1966)
• Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969)
• Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness (1972)
• South of No North (1973)
• Hot Water Music (1983)
• Tales of Ordinary Madness (1983)
• The Most Beautiful Woman in Town (1983)
• Short Stories and Essays (2008) ISBN 978-0872864924.
• Absence of the Hero (2010)

Nonfiction

• Shakespeare Never Did This (1979); expanded (1995)
• The Bukowski/Purdy Letters (1983)
• Selected Letters (1993)
• Selected Letters, volume 2 (1995)
• The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (1998)
• Selected Letters, volume 3 (1999)
• The Correspondense of Charles Bukowski and Sheri Martinelli (2001)

Films

• Bukowski at Bellevue 1970 - Performance
• Supervan 1976 - cameo
• There's Gonna Be a God Damn Riot in Here - filmed in 1979, released on DVD in 2008 - Performance
• The Last Straw - filmed in 1980, released on DVD in 2008 - Performance
• Tales of Ordinary Madness - Movie
• Barfly 1987 - Movie
• Crazy Love 1987 - Movie
• Bukowski: Born Into This 2002 - Documentary
• Factotum 2005 - Movie
• The Suicide 2006 - Short film