born Dec. 30, 1910, New York, N.Y., U.S.
died Nov. 18, 1999, Tangier, Mor.
U.S.-Moroccan composer, writer, and translator.
Bowles studied composition with Aaron Copland and wrote music for more than 30 plays and films. He moved to Morocco in the 1940s. He set his best-known novel, The Sheltering Sky (1948; film, 1990), in Tangier. His protagonists, both in that novel and elsewhere, are often Westerners maimed by their contact with traditional cultures that bewilder them, and violent events and psychological collapse are recounted in a detached and elegant style. His wife, Jane Bowles (1917–73), is known for the novel Two Serious Ladies (1943) and the play In the Summer House (1953).