Paul Frederic Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator born in Queens, New York on December 30, 1910. Bowles was the last surviving representative of a generation of artists whose work has shaped 20th century literature and music. Among those lives that intersected with Paul Bowles during the “beat generation” were Allen Ginsberg, Brion Gysin , William S. Burroughs, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Aaron Copeland and Gertrude Stein. Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City Paul Bowles displayed a talent for music and writing. Bowles attended the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris in the 1930s. During college Bowles was characterized as a unique and intelligent individual who preferred to keep to himself. In the midst of his college years, he quietly set sail for Paris where he worked briefly as a switchboard operator at the Herald Tribune but soon returned to New York, taking a job at Dutton’s Bookshop on Fifth Avenue. Paul Bowles also studied music with the composer, Aaron Copland and in New York wrote music for various theatrical productions, as well as other compositions. Bowles achieved critical and popular acclaim with the publication of his first novel The Sheltering Sky, in 1949 set in French North Africa. The Sheltering Sky was later filmed in 1990 by Bernardo Bertolucci. The film was shotin Morocco (Tangiers and Ait Benhaddou, Ouarzazate) as well as Algeria and Niger and features actors Deborah Winger John Malkovich and Timothy Spall. The Sheltering Sky tells a dangerous and erotic journey of an American artist couple, Port and Kit Mores, and their aimless travels through Africa in search of new experiences.
