Charles Bukowski

Ham on rye

INTRODUCTION BY RODDY DOYLE'He brought everyone down to earth, even the angels' LEONARD COHENCharles Bukowski is one of the greatest authors of the twentieth-century. The autobiographical Ham on Rye is widely considered his finest novel. A classic of American literature, it offers powerful insight into his youth through the prism of his alter-ego Henry Chinaski, who grew up to be the legendary Hank Chinaski of Post Office and Factotum.

In what is widely hailed as the best of his many novels, Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a harrowingly cheerless childhood in Germany through acne-riddled high school years and his adolescent discoveries of alcohol, women, and the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of D. H. Lawrence, Ham on Rye offers a crude, brutal, and savagely funny portrait of an outcast's coming-of-age during the desperate days of the Great Depression.

Først og fremst er dette Bukowskis selvbiografiske roman om oppvekst og utvikling til kunstner, drukkenbolt og etter hvert kult-figur. En roman om kunstneren som ungt menneske i klassisk forstand.