author
John Martin
Best known as the founder of Black Sparrow Press, he helped bring bold, unconventional writing to a much wider audience. His long partnership with Charles Bukowski became one of the most famous publisher-author relationships in modern American literature.
1 Audiobook
A Fine Day for Dying
by John Martin
About the author
John Martin was an American publisher who founded Black Sparrow Press in Los Angeles in 1966. A passionate book collector from a young age, he sold his collection of D. H. Lawrence first editions to help finance the press, then built Black Sparrow into a home for writers he believed in deeply.
He is especially remembered for championing Charles Bukowski, whom he famously supported so Bukowski could leave his day job and write full time. Under Martin, Black Sparrow also published many other important literary voices, including John Fante and Paul Bowles, and became known for backing work that larger publishers often overlooked.
Martin later described himself as drawn to direct, unvarnished writing and to authors working outside the mainstream. That instinct gave Black Sparrow a lasting place in American literary history, and Martin is widely remembered as a publisher who cared first about the work and the writers behind it.