VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL PRESENTS A SELECTION OF MODERN JAPANESE CLASSICS

A classic of twentieth century Japanese fiction, this existential novel--which David Mitchell has called "devious, addictive.... Never less than compulsive"--tells of a man and a woman forced into cohabitation at the bottom of sand pit.

One of the premier Japanese novels of the twentieth century, The Women in the Dunes combines the essence of myth, suspense, and the existential novel. 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.