Kirjahaku

The short fiction of American literary cult figure Paul Bowles is marked by a unique, delicately spare style, and a dark, rich, exotic mood, by turns chilling, ironic, and wry possessing a symmetry between beauty and terror that is haunting and ultimately moral. In "Pastor Dowe at Tecate," a Protestant missionary is sent to a faraway place where his God has no power. In "Call at Corazon," an American husband abandons his alcoholic wife on their honeymoon in a South American jungle. In "Allal," a boy's drug-induced metamorphosis into a deadly serpent leads to his violent death. Here also are some of Bowles's most famous works, including "The Delicate Prey," a grimly satisfying tale of vengeance, and "A Distant Episode," which Tennessee Williams proclaimed "a masterpiece.""

A striking collection of stories, poems, letters, travel essays, journal entries, excerpts from three novels, and more--including the complete text of The Sheltering Sky--from one of the most revered authors of the twentieth century

'It's an easy enough job if one has something to say', Paul Bowles remarked in a letter to his mother about his first foray into music criticism. And Paul Bowles, indeed, had plenty to say about music. Though known chiefly as a writer of novels and stories, Paul Bowles (1910-99) thought of himself first and foremost as a composer. Drawing together the work he did at the intersection of his two passions and professions, writing and music, this volume collects the music criticism Bowles published between 1935 and 1946 as well as an interview conducted by Irene Herrmann shortly before his death. An intimate of Aaron Copland and protege of Virgil Thomson, Bowles was a musical sophisticate acquainted with an enormous range of music. His criticism collected here brilliantly illuminates not only the whole range of modernist composition but also film music, jazz, Mexican and Moroccan music, and many other genres. As a reviewer he reports on established artists and young hopefuls, symphonic concerts indoors and out, and important premieres of works by Copland, Thomson, Cage, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky, among others. Written with the austere grace of his better-known literary works, Bowles' criticism enhances our picture of an important era in American music history as well as our sense of his accomplishments and extraordinary contribution to twentieth-century culture.

The Sheltering Sky is a landmark of twentieth-century literature. In this intensely fascinating story, Paul Bowles examines the ways in which Americans' incomprehension of alien cultures leads to the ultimate destruction of those cultures.A story about three American travelers adrift in the cities and deserts of North Africa after World War II, The Sheltering Sky explores the limits of humanity when it touches the unfathomable emptiness and impassive cruelty of the desert.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Originally published in 1955, Paul Bowles's remarkable novel set in Fez, Morocco, during the last days of the French colonial empire, is an expansive piece of writing--vintage Bowles"With its atmosphere of sinister tension, its scenes of nationalist conspiracy and French police action, of escape and pursuit in the Arab quarter, The Spider's House reads for stretches like a first-class political thriller." -New York TimesThe dilemma of the outsider in an alien society, and the gap in understanding between cultures, recurrent themes of Paul Bowles's writings, are dramatized with brutal honesty in this novel set in Fez, Morocco, during that country's 1954 nationalist uprising. Totally relevant to today's political situation in the Middle East and elsewhere, richly descriptive of its setting, and uncompromising in its characterizations, The Spider's House is perhaps Bowles's best, most beautifully subtle novel.

Exemplary storles that reveal the blzarre, the dlsturblng, the perllous, and the wlse ln other clvlllzatlons -- from one of Amerlca's most lmportant wrlters of the twentleth century.

On the terrace of an elaborate hilltop apartment overlooking a Central American capital, four people sit making polite conversation. The American couple -- an elderly physician and his young wife -- are tourists. Their host, whom they have just met, is a young man of striking good looks and charm. The girl, his mistress, is very young and very beautiful. Sitting there, watching the sunset, the Slades seem to be enjoying the sort of fortunate chance encounter that travelers cherish. But amid the civilities and small talk, the host's casual remark to the American woman proves prophetic: "It's not exactly what you think."Masterfully -- with the poetic control that has always characterized his work -- Paul Bowles leads the reader beneath the surface of hospitality and luxury into a tortuous maze of human relationships and shifting moods, until what seems at first a merely casual encounter is seen to be one rooted in viciousness and horror.

Their Heads are Green and their Hands are Blue is an engaging collection of eight travel essays. Except for one essay on Central America, all of these pieces are concerned with locations in the Hindu, Buddhist, or Islamic worlds. A superb and observant traveler, Paul Bowles was a born wanderer who found pleasure in the inaccessible and who cheerfully endures the concomitant hardships with a matter-of-fact humor. These essays provide us with Paul Bowles' characteristic insightfulness and bring us closer to a world we frequently hear about, but often find difficult to understand.

A Distant Episode contains the best of Paul Bowles's short stories, as selected by the author. An American cult figure, Bowles has fascinated such disparate talents as Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Truman Capote, William S. Burroughs, Gore Vidal, and Jay McInerney.

In Let It Come Down, Paul Bowles plots the doomed trajectory of Nelson Dyar, a New York bank teller who comes to Tangier in search of a different life and ends up giving in to his darkest impulses. Rich in descriptions of the corruption and decadence of the International Zone in the last days before Moroccan independence, Bowles's second novel is an alternately comic and horrific account of a descent into nihilism.

Paul Bowles, the acclalmed author of The Shelterlng Sky, offers movlng, powerful, subtle, and fasclnatlng lnslghts lnto hls llfe, hls wrltlng, and hls world.

In this intense and brilliant book Bowles focuses on Morocco, condensing experience, emotion, and the whole history of a people into a series of short, insightful vignettes. He distills for us the very essence of Moroccan culture. With extraordinary immediacy, he takes the reader on a journey through the Moroccan centuries, pausing at points along the way to create resonant images of the country, it's landscapes, and the beliefs and characteristics of its inhabitants.

"Bowles is at his best when writing about places. He can evoke a place with a few sure strokes."--New York Times"His work is art. At his best, Bowles has no peer."--TimeTravels is a thrilling anthology of the travel writings of Paul Bowles, author of the era-defining post-war novel The Sheltering Sky. The acclaimed essays in Travel--never before collected in a single volume--span more than sixty years and range from Bowles's early days in Paris to his time spent in Ceylon, Thailand, Kenya, and his expatriate life in Morocco. Insightful, exciting, and evocative, featuring original photographs throughout, Travels is a stunning collection of rarely seen shorter works--a showcase of the literary artistry of one of the truly great American writers of the twentieth century.

"The Sheltering Sky is one of the most original, even visionary, works of fiction to appear in the twentieth century." --Tobias Wolff"It stands head and shoulders above most other novels published in English since World War II." --New Republic In this classic work of psychological terror, Paul Bowles examines the ways in which Americans apprehend other cultures--and the ways in which their incomprehension destroys them. The story of three American travelers adrift in the cities and deserts of North Africa after World War II, The Sheltering Sky is at once merciless and heartbreaking in its compassion. It etches the limits of human reason and intelligence--perhaps even the limits of human life --when they touch the unfathomable emptiness and impassive cruelty of the dessert.

Paul Bowles's classic collection of short stories, available in a deluxe paperback edition--part of Ecco's Art of the Story series."All the tales are a variety of detective story," wrote Bowles of this, his first short story collection, "in which the reader is the detective; the mystery is in the motivation for the characters'' behavior." In such stories as "A Distant Episode" and How Many Midnights," Bowles pushes human character beyond socially defined limits and maps a transformed (often horribly transformed) reality.Bowles captures the duality of human frailty and cruelty in these seventeen taut and atmospheric tales, written between 1939 and 1949. Brutal and gorgeous, visceral yet perceptive, this timeless collection is "one of the most profound, beautifully wrought, and haunting collections in our literature. . . at once austere, witty, violent, and sensuous. . . . His language has a purity of line, a poise and authority entirely its own, capable of instantly modulating from farce to horror without a ruffle" (Tobias Wolff).

Let It Come Down, with its title from Macbeth, tells the story of Dyar, a New York bank clerk who throws up his secure, humdrum job to find a reality abroad with which to identify himself, and his macabre experiences in the inferno of Tangiers as he gives in to his darkest impulses. Rich in descriptions of the corruption and decadence of the International Zone in the last days before Moroccan independence, Bowles's second novel is an alternately comic and horrific account of a descent into nihilism.

'The Sheltering Sky is a book about people on the edge of an alien space; somewhere where, curiously, they are never alone' Michael Hoffman.Port and Kit Moresbury, a sophisticated American couple, are finding it more than a little difficult to live with each other. Endeavouring to escape this predicament, they set off for North Africa intending to travel through Algeria - uncertain of exactly where they are heading, but determined to leave the modern world behind. The results of this casually taken decision are both tragic and compelling.

In these hauntingly beautiful stories of abandonment and vengeance, extreme situations lead to disturbing conclusions. A missionary is sent to a place so distant he finds his God has no power there; a husband abandons his wife as they honeymoon in the South American jungle; a splash of water triggers an explosion of violence; and a boy's drug-induced transformation leads to cruelty enjoyed and suffered.Masterfully written, these are chilling tales from sun-drenched and brutal climes.

Fez, 1954, and American ex-pat Stenham reluctantly accepts a guide for his night-time walk home through the streets of the Medina. A nationalist uprising is transforming the country, much to the annoyance of Stenham, who enjoys the trappings of the old city. His path soon crosses with the young, illiterate son of a healer, another outsider to the newly politicised life of Morocco, in this brutally honest novel of life in the midst of terrorism, violence and the ugly opportunism that accompanies both.Bowles's most masterly novel combines his classic themes: the conflict of Eastern and Western cultures and the trials of otherness.

A chance encounter while holidaying in Central America leads an American couple, the Slades, to befriend the charming, handsome Grove Soto and his young Cuban mistress. But as the Slades' trip becomes prolonged and they grow increasingly dependent on their new acquaintances, an undercurrent of cruelty begins to disturb the comfort and niceties to which they are accustomed. Up Above the World shows Paul Bowles to be a master of the tension and horror of rising viciousness.