The story centers on Port Moresby and his wife Kit, a married couple originally from New York who travel to the North African desert accompanied by their friend Tunner.

The journey, initially an attempt by Port and Kit to resolve their marital difficulties, is quickly fraught by the travelers' ignorance of the dangers that surround them.

The novel was adapted by Bernardo Bertolucci into a 1990 film with the same title starring Debra Winger and John Malkovich, and with a screenplay by Mark Peploe.

In a 1993 interview just prior to his accidental on-set death, actor Brandon Lee paraphrased a passage from The Sheltering Sky.

[2] Lee had chosen this quote to be included in his upcoming wedding invitations; it is now inscribed on his tombstone:[3] Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well.