Post Office ( novel ) - wikipedia Post Office ( novel ) Post Office First edition cover Author Charles Bukowski Country United States Language English Genre Autobiographical novel Publisher Black Sparrow Press Publication date 1971 Media type Print Pages 208 ISBN 0 - 87685 - 086 - 7 OCLC 1031776074 Dewey Decimal 813.54 LC Class PS3552. U4 Followed by Factotum Post Office is the first novel written by Charles Bukowski, published in 1971 when he was 50 years old. Contents 1 Plot 2 Writing and publication 3 Film adaptation 4 References 5 External links Plot In Los Angeles, California, down - and - out barfly Henry Chinaski becomes a substitute mail carrier ; he quits for a while and lives on his winnings at the track, then becomes a mail clerk. Chinaski drifts from place to place, surviving through booze and women, with his biting sense of humor and a cynical view of the world. Writing and publication An autobiographical account of Bukowski 's years working as a carrier and sorter for the United States Postal Service, the novel is `` dedicated to nobody ''. Post Office introduces Bukowski 's autobiographical anti-hero, Henry Chinaski. It covers the period of Bukowski 's life from about 1952 to his resignation from the United States Postal Service three years later, to his return in 1958 and then to his final resignation in 1969. During this time, Chinaski / Bukowski worked as a mail carrier for a number of years. After a brief hiatus, in which he supported himself by gambling at horse races, he returned to the post office to work as a sorter. The great love of Bukowski 's life, Jane Cooney Baker ( `` Betty '' in Post Office ), was a widowed alcoholic 11 years his senior with an immense beer belly. She died in January 1962. She also served as the model for `` Wanda '' in the 1987 Bukowski - scripted film Barfly. Bukowski 's first wife, Barbara Frye ( `` Joyce '' ), suffered a physical deformity -- two vertebrae were missing from her neck, giving the impression that `` she was permanently hunching her shoulders ''. After two years of marriage in the late 1950s, she filed for divorce, accusing him of `` mental cruelty ''. In the novel, Joyce is portrayed as a wealthy nymphomaniac. In December 1969, John Martin founded Black Sparrow Press in order to publish Bukowski 's writing, offering him $100 per month for life on condition that Bukowski would quit working for the post office and write full - time for Black Sparrow. Bukowski agreed ; three weeks later, he had written Post Office. Film adaptation The film rights to Post Office were sold to Taylor Hackford in the early 1970s, but a film version of the novel has yet to be made. Hackford did direct a 1973 documentary about Bukowski, simply titled Bukowski. References Jump up ^ Michael Nordine, `` Best L.A. Novel Ever : John Fante 's Ask the Dust vs. Charles Bukowski 's Post Office, Round 1, '' LA Weekly, November 2, 2012. ^ Jump up to : Kyle Ryan, `` Post Office by Charles Bukowski, '' The A.V. Club, August 16, 2011. Jump up ^ William Booth, `` Charles Bukowski, Bard of Booze, '' Washington Post, July 6, 2004. ^ Jump up to : Jonathan Smith, `` ' I Never Saw Him Drunk ' : An Interview With Bukowski 's Longtime Publisher, '' Vice, June 20, 2014. ^ Jump up to : Lori Moody, `` Charles Bukowski Leaves A Controversial Legacy, '' Chicago Tribune, March 16, 1994. External links Post Office quotes Charles Bukowski Novels Post Office ( 1971 ) Factotum ( 1975 ) Ham on Rye ( 1978 ) Women ( 1982 ) Hollywood ( 1989 ) Pulp ( 1994 ) Collections 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 ) The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship ( 1998 ) Portions from a Wine - stained Notebook : Short Stories and Essays ( 2008 ) More Notes of a Dirty Old Man ( 2011 ) Related Bukowski ( 1973 film ) Bukowski ( upcoming film ) Charles Bukowski : Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life ( 1998 biography ) Henry Chinaski Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Post_Office_(novel)&oldid=841978308 '' Categories : 1971 American novels Novels by Charles Bukowski Debut novels Autobiographical novels Novels set in Los Angeles Hidden categories : Pages to import images to Wikidata Talk Contents About Wikipedia Čeština Deutsch Ελληνικά Español Euskara Français Galego Italiano Русский Српски / srpski Suomi Svenska Українська 4 more Edit links This page was last edited on 19 May 2018, at 11 : 03. About Wikipedia

Question: who wrote the work ' the post office'
Answer: Charles Bukowski