Two Serious Ladies (Penguin Modern Classics) - Tapa blanda

This is the only novel that Bowles completed before being incapacitated by illness. It is a humorous account of the lives of two women of very different characters, both sliding into alcoholism and a bohemian existence. The interwoven narratives of these two serious ladies embody the theme of women's desire for freedom. Bowles' chaotic, comic novel is a celebration of the defiant mores of her own life, proclaiming a right to female freedom which shocked her contemporaries.

Jane Auer was born in New York City in 1917. At twenty-one, she married writer and composer Paul Bowles. Theirs was an unconventional marriage. After their wedding they travelled to Panama, the setting for "Two Serious Ladies" which was published in 1943. From 1947, they lived abroad, mostly in Tangier. In 1954, Jane's play "In the Summer House" was produced. Bowles went on to write short stories, a novella, and in 1966, her final novel, "Plain Pleasures" Jane Bowles died on May 4, 1973.