A Distant Episode: The Selected Stories

Paul Bowles

Harper Collins, Jun 13, 2006 - Fiction - 368 pages

A Distant Episode contains the best of Paul Bowles's short stories, as selected by the author. An American cult figure, Bowles has fascinated such disparate talents as Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Truman Capote, William S. Burroughs, Gore Vidal, and Jay McInerney.

Contents

• Preface by the Author: 1
• The Echo: 13
• Call at Corazón: 28
• Pages from Cold Point: 40
• The Circular Valley: 61
• The Delicate Prey: 70
• At Paso Rojo: 79
• Pastor Dowe at Tacaté: 96
• Señor Ong and Señor Ha: 117
• The Frozen Fields: 139
• He of the Assembly: 157
• The Time of Friendship: 172
• Mejdoub: 202
• Allal: 208
• Tapiama: 218
• The Little House: 235
• Here to Learn: 243

About the author

Paul Bowles was born in Queens, New York, in 1910. He began his travels as a teenager, setting off for Paris, telling no one of his plans. In 1930 he visited Morocco for the first time, with Aaron Copland, with whom he was studying music. His early reputation was as a composer and he wrote the scores for several Tennessee Williams plays. Bowles married the writer Jane Auer in 1938, and after the war the couple settled in Tangier. In Morocco Bowles turned principally to fiction. The Sheltering Sky—inspired by his travels in the Sahara—was a New York Times bestseller in 1950, and has gone on to sell more than 250,000 copies. It was followed by three further novels, numerous short stories, nonfiction, and translations. Bowles died in Tangier in 1999.

Bibliographic information

• Title: A Distant Episode: The Selected Stories
• Author: Paul Bowles
• Publisher: Harper Collins, 2006
• ISBN: 0061137383, 9780061137389
• Length: 368 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Short Stories (single author)