Paul Bowles

Born

in Jamaica, Queens, NY, The United States

December 10, 1910

Died

November 18, 1999

Website

http://www.paulbowles.org/

Genre

Literature & Fiction

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Paul Bowles grew up in New York, and attended college at the University of Virginia before traveling to Paris, where became a part of Gertrude Stein's literary and artistic circle. Following her advice, he took his first trip to Tangiers in 1931 with his friend, composer Aaron Copeland.

In 1938 he married author and playwright Jane Auer (see: Jane Bowles). He moved to Tangiers permanently in 1947, with Auer following him there in 1948. There they became fixtures of the American and European expatriate scene, their visitors including Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal. Bowles continued to live in Tangiers after the death of his wife in 1973.

Bowles died of heart failure in Tangier on November 18, 1999. His ashes were interred nea ...more

Combine Editions
Paul Bowles’s books

Average rating: 3.94 · 38,598 ratings · 2,956 reviews · 145 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Sheltering Sky 3.91 avg rating — 24,158 ratings — published 1949 — 86 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Let it Come Down 3.92 avg rating — 1,786 ratings — published 1952 — 38 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Spider's House by Paul Bowles, Francine Prose (Goodreads Author) (Introduction) 4.01 avg rating — 1,486 ratings — published 1955 — 31 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Stories of Paul Bowles by Paul Bowles, Robert Stone (Introduction) 4.29 avg rating — 1,063 ratings — published 2001 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Collected Stories, 1939-1976 by Paul Bowles, Gore Vidal (Introduction) 4.42 avg rating — 687 ratings — published 1979 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Up Above the World 3.66 avg rating — 964 ratings — published 1966 — 30 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Delicate Prey and Other Stories 4.23 avg rating — 774 ratings — published 1950 — 24 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue: Scenes from the Non-Christian World by Paul Bowles, Edmund White (Introduction) 4.05 avg rating — 534 ratings — published 1957 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Distant Episode: The Selected Stories 4.19 avg rating — 390 ratings — published 1992 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard 3.97 avg rating — 329 ratings — published 1981 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Paul Bowles…

Quotes by Paul Bowles

“Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don't know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It's that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don't know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”
― Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

tags: sheltering-sky-bowles-death-life

410 likes

“Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20. And yet it all seems limitless.”
― Paul Bowles

191 likes

“How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”
― Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

117 likes

See all Paul Bowles's quotes »

Polls

April 2015 New School Classic Group Read

What book should we read for our April 2015 New School Classic group read?

1920, The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, 305 pages

12 votes, 25.5%

1982, Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally, 429 pages

7 votes, 14.9%

1939, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, 264 pages

5 votes, 10.6%

1957, The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, 320 pages

5 votes, 10.6%

1954, 100 Selected Poems by E.E. Cummings, 128 pages

4 votes, 8.5%

1952, Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor, 236 pages

3 votes, 6.4%

1931, Light in August by William Faulkner, 507 pages

3 votes, 6.4%

1988, Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler, 350 pages

2 votes, 4.3%

1949, The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles, 342 pages

2 votes, 4.3%

1903, The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler, 320 pages

2 votes, 4.3%

1996, Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, 432 pages

1 vote, 2.1%

1921, The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer, 274 pages

1 vote, 2.1%

47 total votes

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