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Travels
by Paul Bowles
Celebrating the centenary of one of the 20th Century’s great prose stylists “Bowles is at his best when writing about places. He can evoke a place with a few sure strokes.” New York Times
Introduced by Paul Theroux |
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 PAUL BOWLES was one of the great twentieth-century American writers, author of the defining post-war novel, The Sheltering Sky. His novels are established classics but here is something new – his collected travel writing, spanning nearly fifty years.
Travels includes more than forty articles, ranging from Paris to Ceylon, Thailand, Kenya and Morocco – where Bowles lived from 1947. They are accompanied by original photos from the Paul Bowles archive, an introduction by Paul Theroux, and a chronology by Daniel Halpern. |
 Paul Bowles was born in Queens, New York, in 1910. He began his travels as a teenager, setting off for Paris, telling no one of his plans. In 1930 he visited Morocco for the first time, with Aaron Copland, with whom he was studying music. His early reputation was as a composer and he wrote the scores for several Tennessee Williams plays.
Bowles married the writer Jane Auer in 1938 and after the war the couple settled in Tangier (although both had mainly same-sex relationships they were devoted companions). In Morocco Paul Bowles turned principally to fiction. The Sheltering Sky – inspired by his travels in the Sahara – was a New York Times bestseller in 1950, and later filmed by Bertolucci. It was followed by three further novels; numerous short stories and translations, notably of the local storyteller Mohammed Mrabet; and the travel pieces collected in this volume.
Paul Bowles died in Tangier in 1999. |
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Publicity campaign will centre on Paul Bowles’ centenary – and the wonderful photos in this book are guaranteed wide coverage.
Paul Theroux’s new introduction will run in a national paper.
Sort of Books publisher, Mark Ellingham, will be writing about his Tangier meeting with Paul Bowles. |
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 “As a traveller, as a writer, I have learned from Bowles’ habit of observation, his love of extreme situations, his curiosity about cultures, his love of solitude, and most of all his patience.” Paul Theroux
“Paul Bowles has had few equals in the second half of the twentieth century.” Gore Vidal
“As these startling, sober travel pieces show, Paul Bowles was able to enter into the inner truth of even the most remote places and peoples.” Edmund White
“Few writers have Paul Bowles’ skill in evocation while making in the familiar something new and extraordinary.” The Times |
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Pub date: June 24th 2010
Price: £14.99
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Extent: 512pp
Size: Demy |
ISBN: 978-0-9560038-7-4 Format: Demy deluxe paperback |
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