more photos (2)

Paul Bowles’s Followers (894)

Add New
Videos

1 comment

Add a comment

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, Music

edit data

Paul Frederic 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 int ...more

Combine Editions
Paul Bowles’s books

Average rating: 3.91 · 51,262 ratings · 4,625 reviews · 255 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Sheltering Sky 3.88 avg rating — 31,508 ratings — published 1949 — 155 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 3.87 avg rating — 2,409 ratings — published 1952 — 80 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 3.96 avg rating — 2,103 ratings — published 1955 — 66 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 4.28 avg rating — 1,225 ratings — published 2001 — 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
	Up Above the World 3.64 avg rating — 1,271 ratings — published 1966 — 70 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 by Paul Bowles, Vendela Vida (Foreword) 4.18 avg rating — 981 ratings — published 1950 — 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
	Collected Stories by Paul Bowles, Gore Vidal (Introduction) 4.40 avg rating — 781 ratings — published 1979 — 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
	Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue: Scenes from the Non-Christian World by Paul Bowles, Edmund White (Introduction) 4.03 avg rating — 652 ratings — published 1957 — 33 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 4.14 avg rating — 462 ratings — published 1992 — 21 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 3.91 avg rating — 421 ratings — published 1962 — 14 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

539 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

281 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

147 likes

See all Paul Bowles's quotes »

Polls

July 2025 New School Poll

Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001) 351 pages

72 votes, 36.4%

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
(1935) 400 pages

43 votes, 21.7%

The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley (1953) 326 pages

23 votes, 11.6%

Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz (1956) 501 pages

20 votes, 10.1%

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
(1949) 318 pages

15 votes, 7.6%

Childhood / Youth / Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen (1967) 370 pages

15 votes, 7.6%

Alberta and Jacob by Cora Sandel (1926) 247 pages.

10 votes, 5.1%

198 total votes

1 comment

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Seasonal Read...: WINTER CHALLENGE 2009-2010 COMPLETED TASKS	3143	3270	Feb 28, 2010 09:02PM
The Book Challenge: Inna's 200 in 2010	67	770	Apr 09, 2010 05:52AM
The Next Best Boo...: pjreads - frequent flyer	28	489	May 02, 2010 05:21PM
The Seasonal Read...: Fall Challenge 2010 Completed Tasks (do NOT delete any posts in this thread)	2785	1213	Nov 30, 2010 09:03PM
Reading with Style: FA10 RwS Completed Tasks	923	434	Dec 01, 2010 06:41AM
Around the World ...: pjreads ♫ - circumnavigator	10	85	Sep 22, 2011 09:15AM
Books Stephen Kin...: Paul Bowles	1	15	Dec 14, 2011 08:47AM

More…