The Stories of Paul Bowles

The short fiction of American literary cult figure Paul Bowles is marked by a unique, delicately spare style, and a dark, rich, exotic mood, by turns chilling, ironic, and wry—possessing a symmetry between beauty and terror that is haunting and ultimately moral. In 'Pastor Dowe at Tecaté,' a Protestant missionary is sent to a faraway place where his God has no power. In 'Call at Corazón,' an American husband abandons his alcoholic wife on their honeymoon in a South American jungle. In 'Allal,' a boy's drug-induced metamorphosis into a deadly serpent leads to his violent death. Here also are some of Bowles's most famous works, including 'The Delicate Prey,' a grimly satisfying tale of vengeance, and 'A Distant Episode,' which Tennessee Williams proclaimed 'a masterpiece.'