Tangier, Morocco. Paul Bowles spent a total of 52 years in Tangier, living there until his death in 1999.

Paul Bowles (1910-1999)

A selective list of online literary criticism for American writer Paul Bowles, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars and articles published in peer-reviewed sources


main page | 20th-century literary criticism | 20th-century fiction | Jane Bowles | about literaryhistory


introduction & biography

Dillon, Millicent. "In Memoriam: On Hearing of the Death of Paul Bowles." At paulbowles.org.

Espey, David. "Paul Bowles." Literary Encyclopedia, 16 Feb. 2005. Eds. Robert Clark, Emory Elliott, Janet Todd. An introduction to Paul Bowles, from a database that provides signed literary criticism by experts in their field, and is available to individuals for a reasonably-priced subscription.

Espey, David. "Remembering Paul Bowles." Professor Espey recounts his meetings with Paul Bowles in Morocco in 1962-64.

Friend, Tad. "Years in the Desert: The Sheltering Sky at Fifty." New Yorker 15 Jan. 2001.

Hibbard, Allen. "Paul Bowles: A Biographical Essay." At paulbowles.org.

"America's Existentialist author Paul Bowles dies." Obituary from the BBC, 11/19/99. Also Paul Bowles obituaries in the Guardian and in the NY Times.

"A Chronology of the Algerian War of Independence." The Atlantic Monthly.

A New York Times feature page on Paul Bowles which contains links to historical Times articles on The Sheltering Sky, reviewed by Tennessee Williams (1949); The Delicate Prey: And Other Stories (1950); Let It Come Down (1952); The Spider's House (1955); Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue (1963); Without Stopping: An Autobiography (1972); and additional reviews and articles about Paul Bowles.


literary criticism

Dillon, Millicent. Publisher's site for You Are Not I: A Portrait of Paul Bowles (U of California P 1998). "Scenes From an Unusual Marriage." A review of You Are Not I. "A new biography of Paul Bowles pays particular attention to his relationship with Jane." Also first chapter of You Are Not I. All at the New York Times.

Edwards, Brian T. "Sheltering Screens: Paul Bowles and Foreign Relations." Edwards contends, "If there is to be a twenty-first century rediscovery of Bowles, the pedagogical and critical danger is that readers will continue to view him through the Cold War lenses that focused his earlier reception." American Literary History 17 (Summer 2005).

Pounds, Wayne. "Paul Bowles and Edgar Allan Poe: The Disintegration of the Personality." Twentieth Century Literature Paul Bowles Issue, 32 (Autumn, Winter 1986) [free at jstor].

Brier, Evan. "Constructing the Postwar Art Novel: Paul Bowles, James Laughlin, and the Making of The Sheltering Sky." PMLA 121, 1, Special Topic: The History of the Book and the Idea of Literature (Jan. 2006), pp. 186-199 [free at jstor].

Hout, Syrine C. "Grains of Utopia: The Desert as Literary Oasis in Paul Bowles's The Sheltering Sky and Wilfred Thesiger's Arabian Sands." Utopian Studies 11, 2 (2000), pp. 112-136 [free at jstor].

Ditsky, John. "The Time of Friendship: The Short Fiction of Paul Bowles." Twentieth Century Literature Paul Bowles Issue, 32 (Autumn, Winter 1986) pp. 373-387 [free at jstor].


web sites

The Authorized Paul Bowles Web Site, www.paulbowles.org. Ed. Kenneth Lisenbee. A Paul Bowles web site authorized by the estate of Paul Bowles. Contains a biography on Paul Bowles by Allen Hibbard and on Jane Bowles by Millicent Dillon, additional essays on Paul Bowles, photographs, memorial essays and interviews, an extensive bibliography for Paul Bowles and detail about his musical works and scores, a briefer bibliography for Jane Bowles, and more.

Miller, Jeffrey; and Allen Hibbard; Kenneth Lisenbee. Catalogue of Paul Bowles's Literary Works. An extended list of primary works, interviews, biographies, secondary criticism, and manuscript collections for Paul Bowles. At paulbowles.org.

A University of Delaware online exhibit covers Paul Bowles and his manuscripts and provides information about primary sources there and at other libraries, with links to Paul Bowles manuscripts at the U of Texas, National Library of Australia, UCLA and Yale.


editions

Novels. The Sheltering Sky (1949); Let It Come Down (1952); The Spider's House (1955). Ed. Daniel Halpern. Library of America.

Collected Stories and Later Writings. Contents: The Delicate Prey and Other Stories (1950); A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard (1962); The Time of Friendship (1967); Things Gone and Things Still Here (1977); Midnight Mass (1981). Also Up Above the World (novella, 1966); Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue (travel book, 1963). Ed. Daniel Halpern. Library of America.


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