Ham On Rye

The cult classic autobiographical coming-of-age modern classic by one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century

He brought everyone down to earth, even the angels

In an age of conformity, Bukowski wrote about the people nobody wanted to be: the ugly, the selfish, the lonely, the mad

Sometimes funny and always sad, Ham on Rye is written in an admirably hard, bare, vivid style

Both powerful and, where appropriate, extremely funny

Reflective, humane, tremendously evocative and absorbingly readable

A scorching account of a childhood, adolescence, a life of ugliness, pain, escape, alcohol, loneliness. Often it is's funny - often it's disturbing - Ham on Rye is a powerful book

A Laureate of American low life

This great novel is Bukowski's supremely honest account of a twisted childhood

The Thing about Bukowski is, when you read what he has to say, he's right

Raunchy yet lyrical, occasionally hilarious while abysmally sad

Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. At the forefront of American counter-culture, his Beat Generation writing is widely celebrated. He was born in Germany in 1920 to an American soldier father and a German mother and was brought to the United States at the age of three. He grew up in Los Angeles and lived there for the majority of his life. During his lifetime he published more than forty-five books, including novels such as Factotum and Post Office. He died in 1994 shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp .