The American who owned Taprobane Island died in what year? 
Taprobane Island:  The islet passed on to the American author and composer Paul Bowles and then the Sri Lankan born former UN Chief Prosecutor Sir Desmond Lorenz de Silva before it came to the ownership of the Australian businessman Geoffrey Dobbs. Paul Bowles: Paul Frederic Bowles ( ; December 30, 1910November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator.
1999