The Authorized Paul Bowles Web Site

PAUL BOWLES: FRIENDS, Part Three

Claude Nathalie Thomas, Vittorio Santoro, Karim Jihad Achouatte,

Mohammed Temsamany and Peggy Guggenheim

Claude Nathalie Thomas was first introduced to Paul Bowles at a dinner party held in Tangier in 1973 and soon became interested in his works. She has translated numerous of Paul Bowles literary works into French, and became his preferred French translator. Madame Thomas has also translated works by Mohammed Mrabet, John Hopkins and Rodrigo Rey Rosa―now the literary heir of the Estate of Paul Bowles and Jane Bowles. Thomas was educated in France, and later studied for several years at the University of California, Berkeley, and also at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, after which she returned to Paris. For over two decades Claude Thomas was a close friend of Paul Bowles, visiting him frequently at his apartment in Tangier and entertaining him and his friends at her Tangier villa.

Karim Jihad Achouatte, one of several close Moroccan friends during Paul Bowles' last decade, acted and sang to Bowles in the film documentary Night Waltz: The Music of Paul Bowles, produced by Owsley Brown III. Paul Bowles, perhaps America's most famous expatriate author and composer, specifically requested that Karim Jihad Achouatte be granted a visa to go to the United States. Artist and photographer Vittorio Santoro closely collaborated with Paul Bowles on the book Portraits, Nudes, Clouds. Other photographs on this page show Mohammed Temsamany, Bowles' first chauffeur for his Jaguar convertible.

Other pictures are of the art collector and philanthropist Peggy Guggenheim with Jane and Paul Bowles in Tangier, Morocco, and at her palazzo in Venice, Italy. Guggenheim sponsored a recording of Paul Bowles' Sonata for Flute in 1946, and in 1954 she travelled to Ceylon to stay with Jane and Paul Bowles on tiny Taprobane island, which he owned and where he wrote during the winter months.

Claude Nathalie Thomas

Claude Nathalie Thomas, Paul Bowles's friend and preferred French translator of his works, Tangier, 1995.		Claude Nathalie Thomas, Tangier, 1996

Paul Bowles, Claude Nathalie Thomas and Phillip Ramey, 1993

Claude Thomas and Paul Bowles after a dinner at the Immeuble Itesa, Tangier

Claude Nathalie Thomas with Kenneth Lisenbee

A Translator's Experience by Claude Nathalie Thomas

Vittorio Santoro

Paul Bowles with artist and photographer Vittorio Santoro, Tangier 1993

Karim Jihad Achouatte



Karim Jihad Achouatte sang to Paul Bowles at the end of Owsley Brown III's documentary film Night Waltz: the Music of Paul Bowles.		In this photo, Karim Jihad Achouatte hands a glass of mint tea to Paul Bowles, well known as one of America's most famous expatriate writers, who left New York in 1947 to write his first novel, The Sheltering Sky in Morocco and ended up living in Tangier for 52 years.

Mohammed Temsamany

Paul Bowles hired Mohammed Temsamany to be his first chauffeur after Gysin suggested that Bowles buy a car. On this trip in 1951, the writer Brion Gysin accompanied Bowles on a trip throughout the south of Morocco. Temsamany is shown here wearing his chauffeur's uniform with Bowles and an unidentified man in Taza, Morocco (Photograph © by Brion Gysin)

Paul Bowles's Jaguar convertible, southern Morocco, early 1950s



Mohammed Temsamany also drove the black Jaguar convertible throughout parts of Europe and England when Bowles visited David Herbert at Wilton House, and he travelled with Jane and Paul Bowles to Taprobane island, the island Bowles bought in the early 1950s..		Mohammed Temsamany at his beachfront home in northern Morocco in 2003. (Copyright PaulBowles.org)

Peggy Guggenheim



Peggy Guggenheim, niece of American industrialist and art collector Solomon R. Guggenheim, on the terrace of her Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. Guggenheim entertained Paul and Jane Bowles, and Ahmed Yacoubi, during their visits. The palazzo now houses the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, which was opened in 1951.		Paul and Jane Bowles with Peggy Guggenheim in Tangier in the early 1950s. Peggy Guggenheim sponsored a recording of Paul Bowles' Sonata for Flute in 1946. She travelled to Ceylon in 1954 to visit Paul and Jane Bowles on Taprobane island.

The two photographs above are copyright by and courtesy of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy, owned and operated by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Reproduction is strictly prohibited without written permission.

Paul Bowles' Friends: Part One; previous (Part Two; Part Three); next (Part Four); (Part five).