Novelist, composer, expatriate and rebel - Paul Bowles is one of the most compelling and mythologized figures in twentieth-century American culture. Remarkably gifted, Bowles entered the vibrant art and literary world of the late 1920s and early '30s as a poet and composer (studied with Aaron Copland). After he moved to Tangier Bowles began writing fiction: The Delicate Prey, The Spider's House, Let It Come Down, and The Sheltering Sky, which he wrote in 1947, and which was immediately hailed as a classic. Bill Laswell legendary bassist and producer went with the Metastation team to Tangier, recorded Bowles, and set his words to ambient landscapes. This collaborative effort resulted in Baptism of Solitude, which contains excerpts from his novels and poems.