The Woman in the Dunes, Kobo Abe
The Woman in the Dunes, Kobo Abe
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The Woman in the Dunes

Author: Kobo Abe

Narrator: Julian Cihi

Unabridged: 6 hr 14 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/18/2018

Synopsis

The Woman in the Dunes, by celebrated writer and thinker Kobo Abe, combines the essence of myth, suspense and the existential novel.
 
After missing the last bus home following a day trip to the seashore, an amateur entomologist is offered lodging for the night at the bottom of a vast sand pit. But when he attempts to leave the next morning, he quickly discovers that the locals have other plans. Held captive with seemingly no chance of escape, he is tasked with shoveling back the ever-advancing sand dunes that threaten to destroy the village. His only companion is an odd young woman. Together their fates become intertwined as they work side by side at this Sisyphean task.

About The Author

KOBO ABE was born in 1924 in Tokyo and grew up in Mukden, Manchuria, during World War II. In 1948 he received a medical degree from Tokyo Imperial University, but he never practiced medicine. Abe is considered one of his country's foremost novelists. His books have earned many literary awards and prizes, and have all been best sellers in Japan. They include The Woman in the Dunes, The Ark Sakura, The Face of Another, The Box Man, and Secret Rendezvous. Abe is also widely known as a dramatist. He died in 1993.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jim on March 14, 2023

[Edited for typos 3/12/23] An existential classic from Japan. A lonely young man is an amateur entomologist and schoolteacher. He hopes to find a new species of sand beetle, so he goes off on a weekend expedition to a beach town where the houses are buried in pits by the ever-shifting stands. He asks......more

Goodreads review by Dana on April 09, 2019

This book tell the story of an entomologist that, in his search for a specific beetle, ends up trapped by local villagers in a huge sand hole with a woman, where he is forced to work gathering sand. As time pass by, his emotions and sanity begin to get twisted. In his struggle to escape both human a......more

Goodreads review by Will on October 19, 2022

Kōbō Abe - Image from Vice.com This is a kafkaesque story of an entomologist who travels to a remote village in search of a new species of beetle. It is he and not the bug who is captured. The village is beset by relentless sand. Their homes have already been buried so deep that it takes full time......more

Goodreads review by Mohammad on February 10, 2020

یک رمان قشنگ و دوست داشتنی. چند نکته‌ی کوچک: یک. ابتدا فیلم اقتباسی این رمان را (که آقای هیروشی تشیگاهارا کارگردانی کرده) دیدم و به خواندن آن بسیار مشتاق شدم. هم فیلم و هم کتاب فوق‌العاده هستند. نظر من این است که اول کتاب را بخوانید، بعد فیلم را ببینید. Woman in the dunes (1964) 8.5 دو. اگر دوستی حشره......more

Quotes

“Devious, addictive. . . . Never less than compulsive. . . . Abe is an accomplished stylist.”
—David Mitchell
 
“Abe follows with meticulous precision his hero's constantly shifting physical, emotional and psychological states.”
—The New York Times Book Review
 
“As is true of Poe and Kafka . . . Abe creates on the page an unexpected impulsion. One continues reading, on and on.”
—The New Yorker

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