“On the Road” in North Africa, a remarkable work that was published eight years before Kerouac’s classic. It tells the story of a 30-ish American married couple and a male friend who are traveling in the French colonies right after the end of World War II. This was a perilous time as the US State Department had advised against traveling there due to rampant disease and the disintegration of social conditions and law and order.

The first half of the book centers on the husband. He is an Ugly American par excellence, obsessed with fully immersing himself in the travel experience. One night, he even slides down a hillside used as the local dump and sits there, taking in the sights and smells of the garbage and filth. His wife knows he wanders off at night to visit prostitutes and drunkenly demands tea, flashing his money after his Arab host has told him the women are asleep.

Sadly, he dies of typhoid in a hut in a God-forsaken village with no doctor or hospital, and his wife walks away into the night. The authorities assume she left him to die.

The second half focuses on the wife. Somehow, she still loves her husband and puts up with all his nonsense while fending off advances from their traveling companion who is in love with her. She thinks of the friend as a jerk and a bore. Later in the book, she travels alone in the desert. She is picked up by a camel caravan, assaulted by the men, and forced to marry one of them. Then she is kept in a harem until she escapes.

The book is filled with local color from what was then a far edge of the earth. These American travelers don't seem to mind the mosquitos, lice, bed bugs, and eating next to trash cans. Perhaps they are trying to repair or reinvigorate their more-than-ten-year marriage. It's a novel of alienation and existential despair, and it's quite fascinating. I wish we had more psychological background about how these folks ended up this way. What drove them to this almost masochist desire for such a down-to-earth travel experience?

The author, born in 1910 and passing away in 1999, was a fascinating character. He was a composer as well as a novelist and spent most of his life as an ex-pat. He set up his own literary salon in Tangier, Morocco, where guests included Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and Gore Vidal. The book is considered a modern classic and is on several top-100 lists of contemporary novels. I read it because many friends on GR had rated it highly and given it good reviews. It's a good story that leaves you with a lot to think about.

This book is ranked 967th on The Greatest Books of All Time site.

It often happens to me that before finding out about a book, I get to see the movie. This was the case with The Sheltering Sky. I saw part of the Bertolucci movie, which I did not enjoy. However, I found the book brilliant. Then I discovered that the book is included in The Top 100 Modern Library List.

The Sheltering Sky was a wonderful surprise for me. After two recent misfires with The Midnight's Children and The Decameron, I was afraid that I was losing my pleasure to read, the ability to concentrate, or that I simply reached my limit. After all, I'm no critic, no literature teacher. So I considered the hypothesis that I found some 200 books that I liked and maybe I should stick with them and try to read them again, without trying new experiences.

The Sheltering Sky is important for me because it proves that I must keep trying. About the book, critics have written: "Its startlingly original vision has withstood the test of time..." and "In this classic work of psychological terror, Bowles examines the ways in which Americans apprehend an alien culture and the ways in which their incomprehension destroys them."

It was a fascinating story for me, with the "action" taking place in the middle of the desert, with the most unexpected events and an unusual fondness for the characters. I learned quite some time ago that I love a book if I love the people and the atmosphere in it.

This is a very strange world, as alien as it can be, and any westerner or European is mesmerized. I know I was, even if I'm glad I've been in the middle of it only as a reader.

This novel delves into the lives of Kit and Port Moresby, a jaded American couple who find themselves adrift in the boundless North African desert. Their marriage, already teetering on the brink, is a reflection of the hollowness they experience in their nomadic existence.

They hop from one town to another, never content with their environment, always in search of a haven that seems to elude them. Port, longing for liberation, is captivated by the raw beauty of the desert. Kit, on the other hand, shrinks from its desolation, yearning for the familiar comforts she has left behind. As they journey deeper into the desert, their divergent desires drive them further apart.

Port's romanticized vision of the desert is shattered by illness and a hidden animosity that lurks beneath the dunes. Meanwhile, Kit struggles with an overwhelming sense of isolation that grows with each passing mile. Bowles skillfully crafts a story of broken spirits, a couple who渐行渐远from a meaningful connection, only to realize the depth of their feelings when it is almost too late.

This is a gripping and emotionally exhausting adventure, superbly brought to life by Bowles' clear and evocative writing. The oppressive atmosphere and the powerful sense of place are steeped in authenticity,无疑reflecting his own travels through Morocco and Algeria.