Paul Bowles began travelling the moment he could - leaving America as a teenager to visit Gertrude Stein in Paris. He settled in Morocco after the war, and for thirty years travelled in North Africa, Central America, Southeast Asia, Indian and Sri Lanka (where he bought an island). He wrote articles, essays and journals along the way - writing which ranks with his novels in its astute observation, dry wit and impeccable prose. Travels brings together for the first time Paul Bowles's travel writing and journals. It includes the full text of his book Their Heads Are Green along with thirty other pieces, previously unpublished in book form. They are accompanied by fifty photos from the Bowles archive.
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`Paul Bowles has had few equals in the second half of the twentieth century.' --Gore Vidal
Paul Bowles was able to enter into the inner truth of even the most remote places and peoples." --Edmund White
`Few writers have Paul Bowles' skill in evocation while making in the familiar something new and extraordinary.' --The Times
`Bowles is at his best when writing about places. He can evoke a place with a few sure strokes.'
--New York Times
Paul Bowles was able to enter into the inner truth of even the most remote places and peoples." --Edmund White
`Few writers have Paul Bowles' skill in evocation while making in the familiar something new and extraordinary.' --The Times
`Bowles is at his best when writing about places. He can evoke a place with a few sure strokes.'
--New York Times
Book Description
Collected travel writing by a 20th century master, illustrated with rare photographs from the Bowles archive, and an introduction by Paul Theroux.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By M. Ellingham
Format:Paperback
As well as a composer and novelist, Paul Bowles was a fine and prolific travel writer. Of the 40 pieces in this excellent collection, mostly written for American magazines, the majority have never been reprinted. His career as a "footloose American" began with an impulsive and penniless flight to Paris aged just 17: "I went for months without a bath .. was gnawed by bedbugs every night ... and loved it all, because I was in Paris". But you will not find detailed descriptions of famous monuments or cathedrals in these essays. As he says in "Windows on the Past" (1955), "the culture of a land ... is the people who live in it and the lives they lead, not the possessions they have inherited." His descriptions of the people and the places they live in are pared down to the bare essentials of language. Of all the cities and landscapes he experiences from Thailand to Fez, the Sahara made the greatest impression. It was a "vast, luminous, silent country", "a mineral landscape lighted by stars like flares." (Guardian review by PD Smith).
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By jibli
Format:Paperback
In this book you will find 39 travel pieces by the writer Paul Bowles published between 1950 and 1993. Forteen appeared in the magazine "Holiday" and five in "The Nation". Eight were collected previously in "Their Heads Are Green And Their Hands Are Blue"(1963) and another eleven in Spanish in "Dias y Viajes" (Seix Barral 1993). Six come from essays written in other's books. More than half of these pieces are about North Africa, where he lived and four about Ceylon (Sri Lanka) where he bought a small island. Pre-war France, Spain and India have two essays each.
There are two summaries of his life, one by the author himself and the other by Daniel Halpern. The introduction is by Paul Theroux and would be forgettable were it not for its errors and idiocies.
Those familiar with Bowles writings will not be disappointed, for his attention to his surroundings, his reactions to them and the art of how to communicate with the reader are delightful.
Why 1993 was chosen as a cut-off date I cannot say. I know of at least one essay written later that might have been included here.
This book has not yet been published in the U.S.A. (december 2010)
More information can be found at the excellent website....the author's name (all one word) followed by "dot" "org".
There are two summaries of his life, one by the author himself and the other by Daniel Halpern. The introduction is by Paul Theroux and would be forgettable were it not for its errors and idiocies.
Those familiar with Bowles writings will not be disappointed, for his attention to his surroundings, his reactions to them and the art of how to communicate with the reader are delightful.
Why 1993 was chosen as a cut-off date I cannot say. I know of at least one essay written later that might have been included here.
This book has not yet been published in the U.S.A. (december 2010)
More information can be found at the excellent website....the author's name (all one word) followed by "dot" "org".
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