The Woman in the Dunes

In 1955,^[3] Jumpei Niki,^[4] a school teacher from Tokyo, visits a fishing village to collect insects. After missing the last bus, he is led by the villagers, in an act of apparent hospitality, to a house in the dunes that can be reached only by rope ladder. The next morning the ladder is gone and he finds he is expected to keep the house clear of sand with the woman living there, with whom he is also to produce children. He learns that the village, which is constantly on the verge of being destroyed by the advancing sand dunes, has developed a system of surveillance and forced labor to save itself: "Just to protect this pitiful bit of geography, more than ten households on the seaside had to submit to a life of slavery."^[2] From the woman in the house he learns that he is not the first visitor to the village to be trapped and subjugated in this way, and he becomes desperate to escape. After a doomed escape attempt in which he is chased into quicksand and forced to plea with his captors to save his life, he is returned to the house in the dunes. Ultimately, he finds a way to collect water which gives him a purpose and a sense of liberty. He also wants to share the knowledge of his technique of water collection with the villagers someday. He eventually gives up trying to escape when he comes to realize that returning to his old life would give him no more liberty. He accepts his new identity and family. After seven years, he is proclaimed officially dead.^[3] (In the original Japanese version, he is proclaimed officially as a missing person.)

The book attracted much attention in Japan on its publication in 1962, earning praise from critics as well as contemporaries such as Kenzaburō Ōe and Yukio Mishima. It won that year's Yomiuri Prize for literature. An English translation appeared in 1964, as did a film adaptation^[4] directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara starring Eiji Okada and Kyōko Kishida which won the Special Jury Prize at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival.^[3]