Share on Facebook

Paul Bowles Biography

Writer / Composer

Paul Bowles is best known as the expatriate author of the 1949 novel The Sheltering Sky, and is a literary icon for his connections with legendary 20th century artists such as Gertrude Stein, Tennessee Williams, Orson Welles, Aaron Copland and William S. Burroughs. After visiting Europe and Northern Africa in the early 1930s, Bowles worked in New York as a composer and music critic. In 1938 he married acclaimed writer Jane Auer (later Jane Bowles), and in 1947 he moved to Morocco, where he began writing. The Sheltering Sky was a critical and commercial success, and Bowles secured a place for himself as an outsider and an astute observer of the differences between cultures. His other works include The Spider's House (1955), A Life Full of Holes (1964) and an autobiography, Without Stopping (1972).

Extra credit: Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci made a film version of The Sheltering Sky (1990), starring Debra Winger and John Malkovich.