The Sheltering Sky

Paul Bowles was an American expat, writer and composer who resettled in Tangier.  He had been a member of Gertrude Stein's literary circle and later led his own circle which included Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs among others. But where Ginsberg and Burroughs returned to New York, Bowles stayed in Tangier for half a century. He outlived them all and wrote more than a dozen novels. He also translated dozens of works from Arabic and Moghrebi into English and French.

Bowles hated being grouped in with the beat writers. He had moved to Tangier in 1947, Burroughs didn't arrive until 1953. Burroughs visited socially with Bowles, but even he was 5 years younger than Bowles, and in turn 15 years younger than Ginsberg. Bowles just identified with another earlier generation of writers, like Camus and Sarte. If you have read their works you may find that his use of language spans both camps.  The Sheltering Sky was his first novel, published in 1949. The below is a poetic 4-part sentence strung together almost like a quatrain.

"The dark dream would be shattered; the light of terror would be constant; a merciless beam would be turned upon her; the pain would be unendurable and endless."