The Woman In The Dunes (novel)
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The Woman In The Dunes (novel)
is a novel by the Japanese writer Kōbō Abe, published in 1962. It won the 1962 Yomiuri Prize for literature, and an English translation and a film adaptation appeared in 1964. The novel is intended as a commentary on the claustrophobic and limiting nature of existence, as well as a critique of certain aspects of Japanese social behavior. The story is preceded by the aphorism "Without the threat of punishment there is no joy in flight." Plot In 1955, Jumpei Niki, a schoolteacher 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 ultimately finds a way to collect water which gives him a purpose and a sense of liberty. He also wants to share the know ...
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Suna No Onna
Suna may refer to: People *Suuna I of Buganda, king of Buganda until 1609 * Suna II of Buganda, king of Buganda from 1836 until 1856 *Suna Kan (born 1936), Turkish violinist of classical music * Suna Kıraç (1941–2020), member of the Turkish Koç family * Suna Murray (born 1955), American figure skater Other * Suna (Espoo), an area of Espoon keskus, Espoo, Finland * Suna (inhabited locality), name of several inhabited localities in Russia * Suna (river), a river in the Republic of Karelia, Russia * Suna (song), a 2008 single by Hatsune Okumura *''Suna'', a 1999 album by Mar de Copas *Sudan News Agency Sudan News Agency, also known as SUNA, is the official news agency of Sudan. It provides news to other organizations in English, French and Arabic. History and profile The Sudan News Agency was launched in 1971. Abdul Karim Mehdi was the first d ..., Sudan News Agency {{Disambiguation, geo, given name Turkish feminine given names ...
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Kōbō Abe
, pen name of , was a Japanese writer, playwright, musician, photographer, and inventor. He is best known for his 1962 novel '' The Woman in the Dunes'' that was made into an award-winning film by Hiroshi Teshigahara in 1964. Abe has often been compared to Franz Kafka for his modernist sensibilities and his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society. Biography Abe was born on March 7, 1924 in Kita, Tokyo, Japan and grew up in Mukden (now Shenyang) in Manchuria. Abe's family was in Tokyo at the time due to his father's year of medical research in Tokyo. His mother had been raised in Hokkaido, while he experienced childhood in Manchuria. This triplicate assignment of origin was influential to Abe, who told Nancy Shields in a 1978 interview, "I am essentially a man without a hometown. This may be what lies behind the 'hometown phobia' that runs in the depth of my feelings. All things that are valued for their stability offend me." As a child, A ...
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Yomiuri Prize
The is a literary award in Japan. The prize was founded in 1949 by the Yomiuri Shinbun Company to help form a "strong cultural nation". The winner is awarded two million Japanese yen and an inkstone. Award categories For the first two years, awards were granted in four categories: novels and plays, poetry, literary criticism, and scholarly studies. In 1950, novels and plays were split to form a total of five categories. This was further reorganized in 1966 to form six categories: novels, plays, essays and travel journals, criticism and biography, poetry, and academic studies and translation. Award winners The ''Yomiuri Shimbun'' maintains an official list of current and past prize recipients. Fiction Drama Poetry and haiku Essay and Travelogue Criticism and biography Scholarship and translation See also * List of Japanese literary awards References External links J'Lit , Awards : Yomiuri Prize for Literature , Books from Japan at waseda.jp on glbtq.com ...
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The Woman In The Dunes (film)
is a 1964 Japanese New Wave drama directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara, starring Eiji Okada as an entomologist searching for insects and Kyōko Kishida as the titular woman. It received positive critical reviews and was nominated for two Academy Awards. The screenplay for the film was adapted by Kōbō Abe from his The Woman in the Dunes, 1962 novel. Plot School teacher and amateur entomologist Niki Junpei leaves Tokyo on a beach expedition to collect tiger beetles and other insects that live in sandy soil. After a long day of searching, Junpei misses the last bus ride back to town. A village elder and some of his fellow local villagers suggest that he stay the night at their village. Junpei agrees and is guided down a rope ladder to a hut at the bottom of a sand dune, the home of a young woman. Junpei learns that she lost her husband and daughter in a sandstorm a year ago and now lives alone; their bodies are said to be buried under the sand somewhere near the hut. After dinner, th ...
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Aphorism
An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by tradition from generation to generation. The concept is generally distinct from those of an adage, brocard, chiasmus, epigram, maxim (legal or philosophical), principle, proverb, and saying; although some of these concepts may be construed as types of aphorism. Often, aphorisms are distinguished from other short sayings by the need for interpretation to make sense of them. In ''A Theory of the Aphorism'', Andrew Hui defined an aphorism as "a short saying that requires interpretation." History The word was first used in the '' Aphorisms'' of Hippocrates, a long series of propositions concerning the symptoms and diagnosis of disease and the art of healing and medicine. The often cited first sentence of this work is: "" - "life is shor ...
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Kenzaburō Ōe
is a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His novels, short stories and essays, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues, including nuclear weapons, nuclear power, social non-conformism, and existentialism. Ōe was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature for creating "an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today"."Oe, Pamuk: World needs imagination"
, Yomiuri.co.jp; May 18, 2008.


Life

Ōe was born in , a village now in Uchiko, Ehime Prefecture on

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Yukio Mishima
, born , was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, Nationalism, nationalist, and founder of the , an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, but the award went to his countryman and benefactor Yasunari Kawabata. His works include the novels and , and the autobiographical essay . Mishima's work is characterized by "its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of Japanese literature, traditional Japanese and modern Western literature, Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death", according to author Andrew Rankin. Mishima's political activities made him a controversial figure, which he remains in modern Japan. From his mid-30s, Mishima's Right-wing politics, right-wing ideology was increasingly revealed. He was proud of the traditional culture and spirit of ...
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Hiroshi Teshigahara
was a Japanese avant-garde filmmaker and artist from the Japanese New Wave era. He is best known for the 1964 film ''Woman in the Dunes''. He is also known for directing other titles such as ''The Face of Another'' (1966), ''Natsu No Heitai'' (''Summer Soldiers'', 1972), and '' Pitfall'' (1962) which was Teshigahara's directorial debut. He has been called "one of the most acclaimed Japanese directors of all time". Teshigahara is the first person of Asian descent to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, accomplishing this in 1964 for his work on ''Woman in the Dunes''. Apart from being a filmmaker, Teshigahara also practiced other arts, such as calligraphy, pottery, painting, opera and ikebana. Biography Teshigahara was born in Tokyo, the son of Sōfu Teshigahara, founder and grand master of the Sōgetsu-ryū school of ''ikebana''. He graduated in 1950 from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and began working in documentary film. He directed his ...
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Eiji Okada
was a Japanese film actor from Chōshi, Chiba. Okada served in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II and was a miner and traveling salesman before becoming an actor. Internationally, his best-remembered roles include Lui ("him" in French) in the 1959 film ''Hiroshima mon amour'', directed by Alain Resnais. In this film, Eiji Okada had to learn the screenplay phonetically because he didn't speak French. He is also known for playing the entomologist Niki Junpei in Hiroshi Teshigahara's 1964 film ''Woman in the Dunes'', an adaptation of Kōbō Abe's novel. He was also second billed under Marlon Brando in the 1963 political thriller ''The Ugly American''. Okada was married to Aiko Wasa, with whom he ran a theatre company in Japan. He died on 14 September 1995 of heart failure, at the age of 75. Selected filmography * ''Onna no Kao'' (1949) * ''Hana no Sugao'' (1949) * '' Until We Meet Again'' (1950) – Tajima Saburo * ''Shiroi yajû'' (1950) – Iwasaki * ''Gozen reiji ...
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Kyōko Kishida
was a Japanese actress, voice actress, and writer of children's books. Career Kishida became an actress in 1950, and starred in a Yukio Mishima production of the 1960 film '' Salome''. Her film and television drama credits number in the hundreds. Among them are four Taiga drama series on NHK television, with roles such as Aguri (the wife of Asano Naganori and Yodo-Dono (the wife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi). She appeared in various roles, including acting and narrating, in various ''Ōoku'' series on television. In the series ''Gokenin Zankurō'', she portrayed the mother of the title character (played by Ken Watanabe), and narrated a ''Lone Wolf and Cub'' television series. Kishida's film credits include Yasujirō Ozu's ''An Autumn Afternoon'' (1962), ''The Broken Commandment'' (based on a novel by Shimazaki Toson), Hiroshi Teshigahara's ''Woman in the Dunes'' (1964) and ''The Face of Another'' (1966) (both from novels by Kōbō Abe), Yasuzo Masumura's '' Manji'' (1964) (based on a n ...
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Jury Prize (Cannes Film Festival)
The Jury Prize (french: Prix du Jury) is an award of the Cannes Film Festival bestowed by the jury of the festival on one of the competing feature films. It is the third-most prestigious prize of the festival after the Palme d'Or and the Grand Prix, and it was considered a "second place" award until after the latter award was introduced. According to American film critic Dave Kehr, the award is "intended to recognize an original work that embodies the spirit of inquiry." History The award was first presented in 1946. The prize was not awarded on 10 occasions (1947, 1949, 1953, 1967, 1974–79, 1981–82, 1984, and 2001). The festival was not held at all in 1948, 1950, and 2020. In 1968, no awards were given as the festival was called off mid-way due to the May 1968 events in France. Also, the jury vote was tied, and the prize was shared by two films on 21 occasions (1957, 1960, 1962–63, 1970–71, 1973, 1987, 1991–93, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2007, 2009, 2014, 2019, and 2021-22 ...
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1964 Cannes Film Festival
The 17th Cannes Film Festival was held from 29 April to 14 May 1964. On this occasion, the Palme d’Or was renamed "Grand Prix du Festival International du Film", a name that remained in use through 1974, after which it became the Palme d'Or again. The Grand Prix went to the ''Les Parapluies de Cherbourg'' by Jacques Demy. The festival opened with ''Cent mille dollars au soleil'', directed by Henri Verneuil. Jury The following people were appointed as the Jury of the 1964 competition: Feature films *Fritz Lang (West Germany) Jury President *Charles Boyer (France) Vice President *Joaquín Calvo-Sotelo (Spain) * René Clément (France) *Jean-Jacques Gautier (France) (journalist) *Alexandre Karaganov (Soviet Union) (critic) *Lorens Marmstedt (Sweden) *Geneviève Page (France) *Raoul Ploquin (France) *Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (USA) *Véra Volmane (France) (journalist) Short film jury *Jean-Jacques Languepin (France) Vice President *Jiří Brdečka (Czechoslovakia) *Robert Mén ...
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