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Paul Bowles

Born

in Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York, 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: 3.93 · 43,708 ratings · 3,567 reviews · 176 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Sheltering Sky 3.90 avg rating — 26,997 ratings — published 1949 — 115 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 3.90 avg rating — 2,041 ratings — published 1952 — 48 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) 3.99 avg rating — 1,676 ratings — published 1955 — 42 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 4.30 avg rating — 1,138 ratings — published 2001 — 17 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 — 1,098 ratings — published 1966 — 46 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 4.19 avg rating — 876 ratings — published 1950 — 36 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 — 729 ratings — published 1979 — 18 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 — 577 ratings — published 1957 — 5 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 4.17 avg rating — 430 ratings — published 1992 — 15 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 3.94 avg rating — 374 ratings — published 1962 — 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

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

478 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

230 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

129 likes

See all Paul Bowles's quotes »

Polls

November 2015 New School Classics Group Read

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

25 votes, 17.4%

1988, Matilda by Roald Dahl, 240 pages

24 votes, 16.7%

1997, Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, 434 pages

16 votes, 11.1%

1930, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, 267 pages

14 votes, 9.7%

1988, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, 197 pages

13 votes, 9.0%

1987, Beloved by Toni Morrison, 324 pages

11 votes, 7.6%

1932, Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, 233 pages

8 votes, 5.6%

1957, The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino, 217 pages

7 votes, 4.9%

1989, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, 288 pages

6 votes, 4.2%

1959, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, 160 pages

5 votes, 3.5%

1940, The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene, 222 pages

4 votes, 2.8%

1949, The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles, 342 pages

3 votes, 2.1%

1932, The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth, 352 pages

3 votes, 2.1%

1928, Quicksand by Nella Larsen, 192 pages

2 votes, 1.4%

1939, Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, 243 pages

2 votes, 1.4%

1931, The Road Back by Erich Maria Remarque, 352 pages

1 vote, 0.7%

1997, Out by Natsuo Kirino, 400 pages

0 votes, 0.0%

1974, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, 288 pages

0 votes, 0.0%

144 total votes

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