by Paul Bowles
First published 1995
This collection brings together Paul Bowles' short fiction in Spanish translation. The American expatriate writer, who spent decades in Morocco, crafts stories that move between North Africa and the American Southwest. His characters often find themselves displaced, caught between cultures they cannot fully inhabit. A diplomat's wife discovers unsettling truths about her marriage in Tangier. An American tourist ventures too far into the Sahara and faces consequences beyond his imagination. A young man returns to his childhood home only to find it transformed beyond recognition. Bowles writes with surgical precision about people who have lost their moorings. His protagonists search for authenticity in foreign landscapes but often encounter only their own limitations. The stories examine what happens when familiar certainties dissolve and individuals must navigate worlds that operate by different rules. Three translators worked to render these tales into Spanish, preserving Bowles' spare style and psychological acuity.
Genres: short-stories, american-fiction, 20th-century, african-literature
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, search-for-authenticity
Setting: Tangier, Sahara, Morocco
Period: 20th-century
320 pages · Hardcover · ALFAGUARA