Paul Bowles


Born
in Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York, The United States
December 10, 1910

Died
November 18, 1999

Website

Genre


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

Average rating: 3.92 · 48,161 ratings · 4,149 reviews · 229 distinct worksSimilar authors
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The Spider's House

3.97 avg rating — 1,943 ratings — published 1955 — 60 editions
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The Stories of Paul Bowles

4.28 avg rating — 1,202 ratings — published 2001 — 17 editions
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Up Above the World

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The Delicate Prey and Other...

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Collected Stories, 1939-1976

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Their Heads are Green and T...

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4.03 avg rating — 626 ratings — published 1957 — 30 editions
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A Distant Episode: The Sele...

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A Hundred Camels in the Cou...

3.93 avg rating — 403 ratings — published 1962 — 20 editions
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More books by Paul Bowles…
Quotes by Paul Bowles  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“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

“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

“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

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%

 
  5 votes, 10.6%

 
  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%

1903, The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler, 320 pages
 
  2 votes, 4.3%

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%

1921, The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer, 274 pages
 
  1 vote, 2.1%

1996, Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, 432 pages
 
  1 vote, 2.1%

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Topics Mentioning This Author

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