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This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Woman in the Dunes, Kangaroo Notebook, the Ruined Map, the Face of Another, Inter Ice Age 4. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: Woman in the Dunes Suna no onna, literally "Sand woman", also translated as Woman of the Dunes) is a novel by Kb Abe and a film based on the novel, directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara. The novel was published in 1962, and the film was released in 1964. Kb Abe also wrote the screenplay for the film version. The surreal and, at times, absurd nature of Woman in the Dunes has been compared to existentialist works such as Sartre's No Exit and Beckett's Happy Days. Aside from its intriguing premise, this film is notable for the life that Teshigahara brings to the ever shifting sand, which almost becomes a character in its own right. An entomologist named Junpei Niki (played in the film by Eiji Okada) is on an expedition to collect insects in an area of sand dunes. When he misses the last bus back, a group of locals suggest that he stay the night in their village. They send him down a rope ladder to a house at the bottom of a sandpit, where a young widow (played by Kyoko Kishida) lives alone. She has been tasked by the villagers with digging sand to be sold to the cities, mostly under the table (sand with salt should not be used for construction purposes), and with preventing the sands from destroying the house (if her house succumbs to the desert then the other houses in the village will be threatened). When Junpei tries to leave the next morning, he finds the ladder removed. The villagers inform him that he must help the widow in her endless task of digging sand. Junpei initially tries to escape; upon failing he takes the widow captive but is forced to release her in order to receive water from the vi...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=1146094 ... Read more

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229 pages in french ... Read more

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Book Club Edition illustrated with 5 line drawings by Machi Abe. Jacket design by Joseph del Gaudio. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

30 years Old and Still engrossing
I read this book in the seventies, as a high school student in the throes of science fiction and feminism.If you enjoy the stories of Philip Dick and the reversals of fortune common to many thrillers, AND can handle the slow-paced style of this author get this book used or wait for the June 2009 reissue.The concept of the super-computer may seem a little dated but the Ice Age references seem very topical in our climate-conscious culture.I loved the surprize of the ending which I will not spoil here and cannot beleive that no one snatched up the film rights given the success of Minority Report, Children of Men, and other speculative thrillers which required an active imagination! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

heartache
this is my introduction to japanese stories and also one of my favourite collections of short stories along with salinger's nine stories and schickler's kissing in manhattan. two of the great writers are here dazai and kawabata

it's a small book and it's nice 'cause you can put it in your pocket and take it with you. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Letras Libres, published by Editorial Vuelta, S.A. de C.V. on January 1, 2009. The length of the article is 2187 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Ficciones cientîficas.
Author: Kobo Abe
Publication: Letras Libres (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2009
Publisher: Editorial Vuelta, S.A. de C.V.
Volume: 11Issue: 121Page: 76(3)

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more