South of No North
Charles Bukowski
The first Black Sparrow story collection: twenty-seven stories of the buried life, folding in the two rare 1960s prose pamphlets.
South of No North: Stories of the Buried Life, published by Black Sparrow Press in 1973, was Bukowski's first collection of short stories from the press that handled his poetry and novels. Its twenty-seven stories run the register of his short fiction — anecdote, invention and self-portrait, with Henry Chinaski, his fictional alter ego, appearing in several — and the volume quietly performs a rescue: it folds in the contents of his two scarce 1960s prose pamphlets, Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts (1965) and All the Assholes in the World and Mine (1966), which had appeared in editions of a few hundred copies and became widely accessible here for the first time. The collection has stayed in print for fifty years and remains, with Hot Water Music, one of the two standard doors into the short fiction.
The title phrase — south of no north — names the compass of the stories: places off every map that matters, rented rooms and bars and jobs with nothing above or below them. Where the City Lights collection of the previous year had gathered the wilder underground-newspaper stories, this volume is the Black Sparrow version of Bukowski's short fiction: quieter selection, the same world. The two absorbed pamphlets give it bibliographic weight beyond its contents — the previously scarce 1960s prose pieces became widely accessible in a major collection here.
With Hot Water Music, the standard entry to Bukowski's short fiction — and the one that carries the 1960s prose inside it.
Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts and All the Assholes in the World and Mine, scarce as pamphlets, became widely readable in these pages.
1965–1966
The two prose pamphlets later absorbed by the collection appear in editions of a few hundred copies.
1973
Black Sparrow Press publishes the collection — its first volume of Bukowski's stories.
2002
The Bukowski catalogue passes to Ecco, which keeps the book in print.
Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness
Charles Bukowski
The City Lights collection of the year before — the wilder underground-newspaper stories.
Read our takeHot Water Music
Charles Bukowski
One of the two 1983 volumes the City Lights collection was split into — the companion shelf of stories.
Read our take
Twenty-seven short stories of what the subtitle calls the buried life — rented rooms, bars, and low-paid work in Los Angeles — published by Black Sparrow Press in 1973. Henry Chinaski, a fictional alter ego of the author, appears in several.
Yes. Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts — first published as a 500-copy chapbook in 1965 — and All the Assholes in the World and Mine (1966) are both collected here, which is how the two scarce pamphlets became widely readable.
It is one of the two usual introductions, with Hot Water Music. Start here for the buried-life stories and the absorbed 1960s prose; start with the City Lights volumes for the wilder underground-newspaper material.
A place off every map — south of a north that does not exist. It names the territory of the stories: lives conducted outside the city that appears in newspapers.
Yes — continuously since 1973, currently from Ecco under the original Black Sparrow ISBN.
Twenty-seven, including the two 1960s prose pamphlets it absorbed.
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View authorThe sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document South of No North, its publication, and its place in literary history.
The primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
The short fiction of the early 1970s and the absorbed pamphlets in the career narrative.
Contents including the two absorbed pamphlets, the Bensenville Mimeo Press chapbook history, and edition ISBNs.
Publication year and the collection's place in the chronology.
Bibliographic details checked against the checklist.
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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