Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
PAUL BOWLES IN TANGIER
Perhaps the best-known foreign writer in Tangier was the American author Paul Bowles, who died in
1999, aged 88. Bowles made a brief but life-changing trip to Tangier in 1910, on Gertrude Stein's ad-
vice, then devoted the next 15 years to music composition and criticism back home. In 1938 he mar-
ried Jane Sydney Auer, but they were never a conventional couple - he was an ambivalent bisexual
and she was an active lesbian. After WWII Bowles took her to Tangier, where he remained the rest of
his life. Here he turned to writing amid a lively creative circle, including the likes of Allen Ginsberg
and William Burroughs.
During the 1950s Bowles began taping, transcribing and translating stories by Moroccan authors, in
particular Driss ben Hamed Charhadi (also known by the pseudonym Larbi Layachi) and Mohammed
Mrabet. He was also an important early recorder of Moroccan folk music.
Thanks partly to Bernardo Bertolucci's 1990 film, Bowles' best-known book is The Sheltering Sky
(1949), a bleak and powerful story of an innocent American couple slowly dismantled by a trip
through Morocco. His other works include Let It Come Down (1952), a thriller set in Tangier; The
Spider's House, set in 1950s Fez; and two excellent collections of travel tales: Their Heads Are Green
(1963) and Points in Time (1982). A Distant Episode: the Selected Stories is a good compilation of
Bowles' short stories.
There is a dark and nihilistic undercurrent to Bowles' writing as fellow writer Norman Mailer de-
scribes: 'Paul Bowles opened the world of Hip. He let in the murder, the drugs, the death of the
Square…the call of the orgy, the end of civilization'. Other commentators have tried to link aspects of
Bowles' life to his writing. Bowles' autobiography Without Stopping (1972; nicknamed 'Without
Telling') sheds little light on these matters.
The official Paul Bowles website is www.paulbowles.org.
Eating
Tangier's 800-plus cafes are a study in local culture, and can be characterised many ways,
beginning with old versus new. The former are almost exclusively male, and often shabby,
while the latter are bright, modern and design-conscious, with light food, high ceilings
and lots of light.
In the medina there's a host of cheap eating possibilities around the Petit Socco (Souq
Dakhel) and the adjacent Ave Mokhtar Ahardan, with rotisserie chicken, sandwiches and
brochettes all on offer. In the ville nouvelle, try the streets immediately south of Pl de
France, which are flush with fast-food outlets, sandwich bars and fish counters.
For self-caterers, the covered markets near the Grand Socco are the best places for fresh
produce, particularly on Thursday and Sunday, when Riffian women descend on the city
in traditional straw hats with pompoms and candy-striped skirts to sell agricultural
products. Fès market OFFLINE MAP
GOOGLE MAP , to the west of the city centre, is good for
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