Book description
'And then one day a solitary figure appeared, moving toward them
across the lifeless plain from the west. One man on a camel... '
Paul Bowles's unforgettable short stories portray people facing
hostile environments and the innate savagery of humanity. These three
unbearably tense tales from sun-drenched and brutal climes tell of
vengeance, abandonment, violence and cruelty enjoyed and suffered, in
a surreal realm of horror.
This book includes The Delicate Prey, A Distant
Episode and The Circular Ruins.
Paul Bowles was born in Jamaica, New York, in 1910. He began
composing music and writing stories at a very early age, and at sixteen
some of his poetry was published in the French literary magazine
transition. At the age of eighteen he began his travels to Europe, North
Africa, Mexico and Central America. A student of Aaron Copland, Bowles
established his reputation early as a gifted composer. In 1945 he
returned to writing short stories and by 1947, when he went to live in
Tangier, fiction had become his major focus. He wrote four novels, The
Sheltering Sky, Let it Come Down, The Spider's House and Up Above the
World; one hundred short stories; a book of poetry; and many travel
essays. He lived in Tangier until his death in November 1999.
