The American writer
A novelist who can leave Tangier for Paris while her Moroccan companions remain.
To experience Tangier and its relationships while preserving her freedom to resume her literary life in Paris.
The book
At a glance
- Tea on the Mountain
- The Delicate Prey and Other Stories
- Mid-twentieth century
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeThe unnamed American writer lives cheaply in Tangier while working from a publishing advance. Her expatriate position lets her enter local spaces without being permanently bound to them.
She becomes involved with young Moroccan men, especially Mijd. Intimacy may be real in the present, but she knows her life will soon continue in Paris.
Her freedom to depart is the central imbalance. Mijd imagines letters and a future bond while she can convert the encounter into memory and experience.
How The American writer Is Portrayed
- Place in the storyPublishing money from elsewhere gives her mobility and temporary independence.
- How power worksNationality and resources let her enter and leave relationships on different terms from local men.
- What Bowles showsShe recognizes some of the imbalance without being able or willing to remove it.
- What remains uncertainThe story does not reduce her connection with Mijd to either pure exploitation or equal romance.
- “Enchantée”Presented to each student in turn, she is acknowledged solemnly and left standing, except by Mjid, who rises, sits down again quickly, and looks worried.
- Twelve years of school togetherShe sees at once that Mjid and Ghazi are close friends, and learns they have been in the same class for twelve years. She notices that Ghazi has the impediment and Mjid the fluency.
- “Paris morals here”Mjid explains that tuberculosis is a word they cannot say aloud, and that Ghazi wants her to think Tangier keeps Paris morals. She is the audience for the performance.
She leaves for Paris while Mijd remains in Tangier imagining future letters and a continuing bond.
If you like The Delicate Prey and Other Stories
If you like Paul Bowles
Explore authors with a similar voice, perspective, and influence.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The doctor of the Paris slums who wrote the century's blackest, funniest novel — and changed the sound of French prose.
View author
Henry Miller
The Brooklyn dropout who arrived in Paris broke at thirty-eight and wrote the exuberant, banned books that ended American censorship.
View author
Martha Gellhorn
War correspondent who covered the Spanish Civil War, D-Day, and conflicts across five more decades; Hemingway's third wife, 1940–1945.
View author