Charles Bukowski

Henry Charles Bukowski born Heinrich Karl Bukowski August 16, 1920 March 9, 1994 was a Germanborn American poet, novelist, and short story writer.

Charles Bukowski was born as Heinrich Karl Bukowski in Andernach, Germany, to Heinrich Henry Bukowski and Katharina ne Fett. His paternal grandfather Leonard had emigrated to America from the German Empire in the 1880s. In Cleveland, Leonard met Emilie Krause, who had emigrated from Danzig, Germany today Gdask, Poland. They married and settled in Pasadena. He worked as a carpenter, setting up his own very successful construction company. The couple had four children, including Heinrich Henry, Charles Bukowskis father.Bukowskis parents met in Andernach in Germany following World War I. The poets father was GermanAmerican and a sergeant in the United States Army serving in Germany following Germanys defeat in 1918. He had an affair with Katharina, a German friends sister, and she became pregnant. Charles Bukowski repeatedly claimed to be born out of wedlock, but Andernach marital records indicate that his parents married one month prior to his birth. Afterwards, Henry Bukowski became a building contractor, set to make great financial gains in the aftermath of the war, and after two years moved the family to Pfaffendorf. However, given the crippling reparations being required of Germany, which led to a stagnant economy and high levels of inflation, Henry Bukowski was unable to make a living, so he decided to move the family to the United States. On April 23, 1923, they sailed from Bremerhaven to Baltimore, Maryland, where they settled. Bukowskis parents began calling their son the Anglophone version of his first name Heinrich, Henry, in order to help him assimilate, the poet would later adopt the Anglophone version of his middle name Karl, Charles. Similarly, they altered the pronunciation of the family name from b u k f s k i booKOF skee to b u k a s k i booKOW ski . Bukowskis parents were Roman Catholic. ........

Source: Wikipedia