The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe

Among the greatest Japanese novels of the twentieth century, 1962’s The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe entwines mythos, suspense, and the existential novel.

Amateur entomologist, Niki Jumpei, searches the scorching desert for beetles. As night falls he is forced to seek shelter in an eerie village, half-buried by huge sand dunes. He awakes to the terrifying realization that the villagers have imprisoned him with a young woman at the bottom of a vast sand pit. Tricked into slavery and threatened with starvation if he does not work, the man’s only chance is to shovel the ever-encroaching sand - or face an agonizing death.

The novel pits the man’s will to escape this sun-fried nightmare against the villagers’ will to keep him where he is, and it is never less than compulsive.

Join us on a cold January Sunday afternoon with some hot tea or coffee and warm discussion.