Stories

James Lasdun in his introduction calls Paul Bowles 'One of the great outsiders of our time', and isolation is a major theme in these dark and often unsettling stories. An old woman lives in a cave untroubled by the scorpions that crawl over its walls. A splash of water triggers an explosion of violence. A young girl 'remembers' things back to front. The concluding story is presented as six letters written to a bitter, dying man. In the stories that make up this dazzling collection, Bowles creates a world in which the extreme situations the characters find themselves in move relentlessly towards their logical yet disturbing conclusions. '[His stories] are eerie and alluring, like night in the desert.' Sunday Times