Travels: Collected Writings, 1950-1993

by Paul Bowles

  1950 The Sheltering Sky enters the New York Times bestseller list on January 1; reviewing it for the Times, Tennessee Williams praises its “true maturity and sophistication.” Bowles spends several months in Ceylon and South India, working on Yerma, an opera for singer Libby Holman based on the García Lorca play. Joins Jane in Paris, where she is working on her play In the Summer House; Jane goes to New York, hoping to see the play staged, and Bowles returns to Morocco and receives visit from Brion Gysin. John Lehmann publishes A Little Stone, omitting “The Delicate Prey” and “Pages from Cold Point” because of censorship concerns. American version, The Delicate Prey and Other Stories, includes the two stories and is published by Random House in November.

  1951 Bowles buys Jaguar and hires Mohammed Temsamany as chauffeur; travels with Gysin through Morocco and Algeria. Works on Let It Come Down during summer in the mountain village of Chaouen; returns to Tangier in the fall and finishes the novel. Translation of R. Frison-Roche’s The Lost Trail of the Sahara is published in August. Bowles leaves with Yacoubi for India in December.

  1952 Let It Come Down published in February by Random House and by John Lehmann in England. Accused of spying by the Ceylonese government, Yacoubi and Bowles are detained for two days before being permitted to travel to Ceylon. Bowles makes offer to buy the island of Taprobane off the coast of Ceylon. Leaves with Yacoubi for Italy, where he plays a role in Hans Richter’s film 8x 8. Agreement to buy Taprobane is sealed.

  1953 Jane Bowles completes In the Summer House; having agreed to write music for the play, Bowles sails to New York with Yacoubi in March. Visits Jane at Libby Holman’s house in Connecticut. Holman, infatuated with Yacoubi, convinces him to live with her, and Bowles returns to Tangier without completing score for In the Summer House. Writes A Picnic Cantata, with text by James Schuyler. Yacoubi returns to Tangier after quarreling with Holman. Bowles and Yacoubi go to Italy, where Bowles collaborates with Tennessee Williams on English adaptation of Visconti’s film Senso. Bowles goes to Istanbul with Yacoubi to write travel essay for Holiday. They return to Italy in October and see Williams and Truman Capote before returning to Tangier amid rioting against the French. Bowles sails alone to United States, and completes music (now lost) for In the Summer House in time for its December 14 performance in Washington and its six-week Broadway run.

  1954 Returns to Tangier, where he is soon joined by Jane. Falls ill with typhoid and sees Williams and Frank Merlo while convalescing. Receives brief visit from William Burroughs, who will live in Tangier for several years. Bowles begins writing The Spider’s House, inspired by political upheaval in Morocco; moves for the summer with Yacoubi to a rented house overlooking the ocean and maintains strict schedule of writing. Transcribes Moghrebi tales told to him by Yacoubi. Moves to Casbah in fall. Bowles and Jane refuse to visit each other because of Bowles’ suspicion of Cherifa and Jane’s distrust of Yacoubi. Hoping to ease tensions by leaving Tangier, Bowles sails for Ceylon with Jane and Yacoubi in December.

  1955 Works on The Spider’s House at house on Taprobane; Jane dislikes the island, is unable to write, and returns to Tangier in March. Bowles finishes The Spider’s House on March 16. Travels with Yacoubi in East Asia before returning to Tangier in June. Works on Yerma. Writes text for Yallah, a book of Saharan photographs taken by Peter Haeberlin. Writes to Thomson in September that “the possibility of being attacked is uppermost in every non-Moslem’s mind ... I have taken an apartment until the first of October next year, but whether I’ll be able to stick it out that long remains to be seen” Develops friendship with Francis Bacon. At Jane’s request, agrees to give Casbah house to Cherifa. The Spider’s House is published by Random House on November 14.

  1956 In Lisbon, Bowles writes anonymous article on Portuguese elections for The Nation. Morocco gains independence on March 2, with Tangier remaining under international control; Bowles writes in The Nation that “in fact, if not officially, the integration of Tangier with the rest of Morocco has already taken place” and that Europeans “know better than to wander down into the part of town where they are not wanted.” Bowles’ parents visit during the summer. German edition of Yallah published in October by Manesse Verlag in Switzerland. Bowles travels to Ceylon with Yacoubi, arriving in late December.

  1957 Needing money, attempts to sell Taprobane. English edition of The Spider’s House brought out by Macdonald & Co. Bowles travels to Kenya to cover the Mau-Mau uprising for The Nation. Upon return to Morocco in May, discovers that Jane has suffered a stroke; rumors circulate of a violent reaction to majoun or poisoning by Cherifa. Receives visits from poets Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, and Alan Ansen, who are drawn to Tangier in part because Bowles and Burroughs live there. Bowles posts bail after Yacoubi is arrested for alleged indecent behavior with an adolescent German boy. Takes Jane to London for treatment in August. Returning briefly to Morocco, Jane continues to have seizures and her psychological state deteriorates; she goes back to England and is admitted to a psychiatric clinic. Bowles and Yacoubi visit Jane in September. Bowles is hospitalized with Asiatic flu and writes “Tapiama” while suffering severe fever. Contracts pneumonia and pleurisy and is bedridden for three weeks; convalesces at the house of Sonia Orwell. Jane receives electric shock treatments. American edition of Yallah published by McDowell, Obolensky in October. Bowles convinces English publisher William Heinemann to bring out a story collection. Returns to Tangier with Jane and Yacoubi in November; Yacoubi is arrested and charged with “assault with intent to kill” the German boy.

  1958 Police interrogate Bowles about Yacoubi and begin investigating Jane’s relationship to Cherifa; the Bowles leave Tangier and Temsamany is repeatedly questioned about them. Taprobane is sold but Bowles is unable to take any of the proceeds of the sale out of Ceylon. The Bowles travel to Madeira, where Jane’s condition improves. Yacoubi is acquitted in a trial lasting five minutes. Jane flies alone to New York in April. En route to the United States in June, Bowles finishes score for Yerma, which premieres at the University of Colorado on July 29. Jane enters psychiatric clinic in White Plains, New York, in October. Bowles goes to Los Angeles and quickly writes score for Milton Geiger’s play Edwin Booth, directed by José Ferrer. Returns to New York; with Ned Rorem and John Goodwin, tries mescaline for the first time. Seeks financial support to record Moroccan folk music. Jane is released from the hospital and leaves the United States with Bowles in December, arriving in Tangier by the end of the year.

  1959 Bowles travels to New York after he is asked to write the score for Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth, which opens on Broadway March 10. Sees Ginsberg frequently. Awarded Rockefeller Grant to record North African music and returns to Morocco. Heinemann publishes the story collection The Hours After Noon in May. Accompanied by Canadian painter and journalist Christopher Wanklyn and driver Mohammed Larbi, Bowles makes four trips to record in remote areas and takes extensive notes that form the basis of essay “The Rif, to Music” Near the end of the project, the Moroccan government forbids further recording, calling the endeavor “ill-timed”

  1960 The Bowles move into separate apartments in the same building, the Inmeuble Itesa in Tangier. Bowles refuses offer of a yearlong professorship from the English Department to Los Angeles State College.

  1961 Tape-records and translates tales by Yacoubi, publishing “The Game” in Contact in May and “The Night Before Thinking” in Evergreen Review in September. Ginsberg returns to Tangier and encourages Bowles to write to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, publisher of City Lights Books, with a proposal for a collection of stories about kif-smoking which were written with the aid of kif; Ferlinghetti accepts enthusiastically.

  1962 Bowles continues to record and translate stories told to him by Moroccans, a pursuit that will figure prominently in his later career. Meets Larbi Layachi, who tells Bowles autobiographical tales; under the pseudonym Driss ben Hamed Charhadi, Layachi’s “The Orphan,” transcribed and translated by Bowles, is published in Evergreen Review. Grove Press offers to publish
Layachi’s autobiography. When English publisher Peter Owen solicits a manuscript, Bowles collects essays and magazine pieces that will be published the following year as Their Heads Are Green (American edition is entitled Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue); Peter Owen will be Bowles’ primary English publisher for the rest of his career. One Hundred Camels in the Courtyard published by City Lights in September. Bowles returns with Jane to New York to write music for Williams’ The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore; visits parents in Florida and attends try-outs of Milk Train before returning to Tangier.

  1963 Completes translation of Charhadi’s A Life Full of Holes. Rents beach house at Asilah, a town south of Tangier, and spends several months there with Jane. Begins writing Up Above the World.

  1964 A Life Full of Holes published by Grove Press in May. Working steadily, Bowles completes Up Above the World late in the year. Burroughs, Gysin, and Layachi leave Tangier for New York.

  1965 Bowles and Jane visit the United States to visit Bowles’ father, who has suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, and they consider buying a house in Santa Fe. Random House rejects Up Above the World. With Jane, Bowles returns to Tangier, where he learns that Simon & Schuster has accepted Up Above the World. Agrees to write book about Bangkok for Little, Brown. Begins to record and translate the spoken stories of Mohammed Mrabet, who becomes a close friend and regular visitor to Bowles’ home.

  1966 Film rights to not-yet published Up Above the World are sold to Universal Studios for $25,000 in February; the novel is published by Simon & Schuster on March 15 to mixed reviews. Bowles receives word in June that parents have died within a week of each other. Travels with Jane to New York, then sails alone for southeast Asia in July. Arrives in Bangkok in the fall and immediately dislikes the city. (“Most of Bangkok looked like the back streets of the nethermost Bronx relocated in a Florida swamp”) Goes to Chiangmai; records indigenous Thai music. Begins stage adaptation of story “The Garden.”

  1967 jilala, an album featuring recordings of the Jilala religious brotherhood made by Bowles and Brion Gysin, is released in January. Bowles returns to Tangier in March after being informed that Jane’s condition has worsened, her depression so severe that she can barely sleep or eat. Takes Jane to a clinic in Málaga, where she is treated until August. “The Garden” is performed in April at the American School in Tangier. Bowles abandons Bangkok book and returns advance. Translation of Mrabet’s Love With a Few Hairs is published by Peter Owen in London; book is adapted for the BBC and shown on September 22 (American edition is brought out by George Brazillier in 1968).

  1968 Peter Owen publishes story collection Pages from Cold Point in April. Jane returns to Málaga clinic for treatment. Bowles accepts teaching appointment in the English Department of San Fernando Valley State College in California, where he teaches a seminar on existentialism and the novel.

  1969 Returns to Tangier, bringing Jane; Jane loses weight excessively and returns to the hospital in Málaga. Bowles signs contract to write autobiography for G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Publication of Mrabet’s The Lemon by Peter Owen (American edition, City Lights, 1972) and M’Hashish by City Lights, both translated by Bowles.

  1970 Poet Daniel Halpern, whom Bowles had met while teaching in California, starts the magazine Antaeus; Bowles is named founding editor. In May, Jane suffers stroke and her condition deteriorates, causing her to lose her vision. Premiere of Gary Conklin’s film Paul Bowles in the Land of the jumblies (retitled Paul Bowles in Morocco for English release and airing on CBS the following year) on December 10 in New York.

  1971-72 Bowles begins translating the work of Mohamed Choukri, Moroccan writer, working from Choukri’s Arabic texts. Music of Morocco, two-disc set taken from Bowles’ recordings in the archives of the Library of Congress, is released. Black Sparrow Press brings out The Thicket of Spring: Poems 1926-69. Autobiography, Without Stopping, is published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons on March 15, 1972. Bowles discovers the stories of Swiss expatriate writer Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904) and begins to translate them.

  1973 Jane Bowles dies in Málaga clinic on May 4 with Bowles at her side. In the years following Jane’s death, Bowles will travel outside of Morocco infrequently and will be increasingly confined to the Inmeuble Itesa (in part because of health problems); receives many visitors and, choosing not to install a telephone at his home, maintains extensive correspondence.

  1974 Bowles publishes three translations: Choukri’s For Bread Alone and jean Genet in Tangier, and Mrabet’s The Boy Who Set the Fire. Resumes writing own short stories after a hiatus of several years.

  1975 Publishes translations of Mrabet’s Hadidan Aharam and Eberhardt’s The Oblivion Seekers in November. Stories “Afternoon with Antaeus,” “The Fqih,” and “Mejdoub” are collected in Three Tales, published by Frank Hallman in the fall.

  1976-78 Black Sparrow Press publishes translations of Mrabet’s Look & Move On and Harmless Poisons, Blameless Sins in 1976 and The Big Mirror in 1977; Bowles’ story collection Things Gone and Things Still Here published in July 1977. Meets Millicent Dillon, who is working on a biography of Jane Bowles (A Little Original Sin, 1981).

  1979 Collected Stories 1939-76 is published by Black Sparrow with an introduction by Gore Vidal. Publication of translations Tennessee Williams in Tangier by Choukri and Five Eyes, collection of stories by Abdeslam Boulaich, Mrabet, Choukri, Layachi, and Yacoubi.

  1980 Translation of Mrabet’s The Beach Café & The Voice is published. Bowles begins working on Points in Time, long essay about Morocco in a genre that he calls “lyrical history”

  1981-82 Premiere of Sara Driver’s film You Are Not I, based on Bowles’ story, on May 12, 1981, in New York. Story collection Midnight Mass is brought out by Black Sparrow Press in June 1981. Next to Nothing, collected poems, is published by Black Sparrow the same month. Bowles completes Points in Time, to be published in 1982 in England by Peter Owen (American edition, The Ecco Press, 1984). Teaches summer writing seminars in Tangier program of the School of Visual Arts in New York. One of his colleagues in the program is Regina Weinreich, who will make a documentary about him. Bowles discovers the work of Guatemalan writer Rodrigo Rey Rosa, one of his students, whose stories he begins to translate. Translation of Rey Rosa’s The Path Doubles Back is published in November 1982.

  1983-85 Bowles publishes unpunctuated “Monologue” stories in The Threepenny Review and Conjunctions. Translation of Mrabet’s The Chest is published. Bowles travels to Bern, Switzerland, for medical treatment in summer 1984. Publication of The Beggar’s Knife, stories by Rey Rosa translated by Bowles, and She Woke Me Up So I Killed Her, collection of translations from several authors.

  1986-90 Translation of Mrabet’s Marriage with Papers is published in 1986. Bowles suffers aneurysm in the knee and undergoes surgery in Rabat in September 1986. Meets the following year with director Bernardo Bertolucci, who is interested in adapting The Sheltering Sky. Begins keeping a diary, which will be published as Days: Tangier journal 1987-89. Concert of Bowles’ chamber music is performed in Nice. Story collection Unwelcome Words is published by Tombuctou Books. Shooting of The Sheltering Sky on location in Morocco begins in 1989. Bowles plays role of narrator, which includes on-screen appearance; becomes frustrated with Bertolucci’s refusal to listen to his objections to the adaptation. Peter Owen brings out story collection Call at Corazón and Bowles’ translation of Rey Rosa’s Dust on Her Tongue. Bowles meets Virginia Spencer Carr, who will become his biographer. Travels to Paris for premiere of The Sheltering Sky; calls the film “awful” Exhibition “Paul Bowles at 80” mounted at the University of Delaware. The Invisible Spectator, biography by Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno, is published by Grove Press; Bowles objects to the book and writes in Antaeus, “I wonder if he knows how deeply I resent his flouting my wishes.” Robert Briatte’s biography, Paul Bowles: 2117 Tanger Socco, is published in France.

  1991-94 Translations of Mrabet’s Chocolate Creams and Dollars and Rey Rosa’s Dust on Her Tongue are
published in the United States in 1992. Limited edition of essay Morocco, with photographs by Barry Brukoff, appears the following year. Bowles’ vision is impaired due to glaucoma. Scores written for synthesizer are performed at productions of Oscar Wilde’s Salome (1992) and Euripides’ Hippolytus (1993) at the American School in Tangier. In April 1994, Bowles attends concert of his music at the Théâtre du Rond Point in Paris, which is recorded and released as An American in Paris. Spends a month in Atlanta for medical treatment at Emory University. Show of Bowles’ photographs exhibited at the Boijmans van Beuningen museum in Rotterdam; Paul Bowles Photographs: “How Could I Send a Picture into the Desert?” is published. Canadian filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal visits Bowles and begins filming a documentary. In Touch, an edition of Bowles’ letters edited by Jeffrey Miller, is published. Premiere of Paul Bowles: The Complete Outsider, documentary film by Catherine Warnow and Regina Weinrich.

  1995 Premiere of Halbmond, adaptation of Bowles’ stories “Merkala Beach” (alternate title of “The Story of Lahcen and Idir”), “Call at Corazón,” and “Allal” by German film-makers Frieder Schlaich and Irene van Alberti, with Bowles introducing the film in an on-screen appearance. For the first time in decades, Bowles visits New York City for three days of concerts devoted to his music and a symposium at the New School for Social Research, September 19-21. Receives standing ovation at concert at Lincoln Center. Reunion with Burroughs and Ginsberg at Mayfair Hotel is filmed by Baichwal. Paul Bowles: Music, a collection of essays relating to his career as a composer, is published by Eos Music Press.

  1996-98 Contributes essay to monograph on Tangier-based artist Claudio Bravo published in 1996. Makes final visit to the United States for medical treatment in 1996. The Music of Paul Bowles, performed by the Eos Orchestra under the direction of Jonathan Sheffer, is released by BMG/Catalyst. Paul Bowles: Migrations, performed by members of the Frankfurt-based Ensemble Moderne, is released by Largo. Mohamed Choukri’s Paul Bowles wa ‘uzla Tanja, a book hostile to Bowles, is published in Arabic in Morocco in 1996 and in French translation (Paul Bowles, le reclus de Tanger) the following year; in a 1997 interview in the Tangier weekly Les Nouvelles du Nord, Bowles says “there’s no logic” to Choukri’s accusatory assessment. Premiere of Baichwal’s Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles at the 1998 Toronto International Film Festival. Millicent Dillon’s You Are Not I: A Portrait of Paul Bowles is published in 1998. Edgardo Cozarinsky’s Fantômes de Tanger, fictional film about post-war Tangier in which Bowles appears as himself, is released in France.