Content Warning: The story and this guide discuss extreme violence, captivity, and enslavement. The guide also references imperialism.

In interviews, Paul Bowles expressed fascination with the desert—in particular, the North African Sahara. Speaking on the connection between “A Distant Episode” and his first novel, The Sheltering Sky, Bowles once stated: “They’re all the professor […]. What I wanted to tell was the story of what the desert can do to us. That was all. The desert is the protagonist” (Caponi-Tabery, Gena. “Paul Bowles.” Twayne’s United States Author Series 706. New York: Twayne, 1989).

In this story, the desert symbolizes a place beyond the bounds of what the professor perceives to be civilization and therefore beyond the bounds of safety. The desert is characterized by its emptiness as “white endlessness” and a “great silence,” suggesting a primal place stripped of anything human, from the trappings of society to the rational mind itself. Throughout the story, the professor is brought further and further into the desert. He begins by leaving the cool highlands to go to the “warm country” near the desert. The professor is then led away out of the town of Aïn Tadouirt into the desert by the qaouaji.