Kōbō Abe, a pseudonym of Kimifusa Abe, was a Japanese writer, playwright, photographer and inventor. One of the premier Japanese novels of the twentieth century, The Women in the Dunes (first published in 1962) combines the essence of myth, suspense, and the existential novel.

SUMMARY: In a remote seaside village, Niki Jumpei, a teacher and amateur entomologist, is held captive with a young woman at the bottom of a vast sand pit where, Sisyphus-like, they are pressed into shoveling off the ever-advancing sand dunes that threaten the village.