The Woman in the Dunes

Aug 25, 2026

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A man disappears on a holiday near the seashore, and despite police investigations and newspaper inquiries, no body or concrete evidence is found. Early theories range from suicide and abnormal psychological motives to the possibility of another person, yet each explanation collapses under missing details. As years pass, uncertainty hardens into formal legal action, and the man is declared dead. The opening establishes mystery, misinterpretation, and the thinness of clues around disappearance.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryStory & Novel

FormatPDF

Pages196

Reading Time5 h 2 min

AccessFree to download

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

About the Author

About the Translator

First Vintage International Edition, April 1991 Copyright © 1964 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in Japanese by Shinchosha as Suna no Onna. First published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1964. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Abe, Kobo, 1924- The woman in the dunes. Translation of Suna no onna. I. Title. [PZ4.A13Wo 5] [PL845.B4] 895.6′3′5 eISBN: 978-0-307-81373-2 90–50625 v3.1 WITHOUT THE THREAT OF PUNISHMENT THERE IS NO JOY IN FLIGHT Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Part I Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Part II Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Part III Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 About the Author About the Translator 1 ONE day in August a man disappeared. He had simply set out for theseashore on a holiday, scarcely half a day away by train, and nothing more was ever heard of him. Investigation by the police and inquiries in the newspapers had both proved fruitless. Of course, missing persons are not really uncommon. According to the statistics, several hundred disappearances are reported every year. Moreover, the proportion of those found again is unexpectedly small. Murders or accidents always leave some clear piece of evidence, and the motives for kidnapping are normally ascertainable. But if the instance does not come under some such heading, clues—and this is especially true in the case of missing persons—are extremely diɽcult to come by. Many disappearances, for example, may be described as simple escape. In the case of this man, also, the clues were negligible. Though his general destination was known, there had been no report from the area that a body had been discovered. By its very nature, it was inconceivable that his work involved some secret for which he might have been abducted. His quite normal behavior had not given the slightest hint that he intended to vanish. Naturally, everyone at ɹrst imagined that a woman was involved. But his wife, or at least the woman he lived with, announced that the object of his trip had been to collect insect specimens. The police investigators and his colleagues felt vaguely disappointed. The insect bottle and net were hardly a feint for a runaway trip with a girl. Then, too, a station employee at S—— had remembered aman getting oʃ the train who looked like a mountain climber and carried slung across his shoulders a canteen and a wooden box, which he took to be a painting set. The man had been alone, quite alone, the employee said, so speculation about a girl was groundless. The theory had been advanced that the man, tired of life, had committed suicide. One of his colleagues, who was an amateur psychoanalyst, held to this view. He claimed that in a grown man enthusiasm for such a useless pastime as collecting insects was evidence enough of a mental quirk. Even in children, unusual preoccupation with insect collecting frequently indicates an Oedipus complex. In order to compensate for his unsatisɹed desires, the child enjoys sticking pins into insects, which he need never fear will escape. And the fact that he does not leave oʃ once he has grown up is quite deɹnitely a sign that the condition has become worse. Thus it is far from accidental that entomologists frequently have an acute desire for acquisitions and that they are extremely reclusive, kleptomaniac, homosexual. From this point to suicide out of weariness with the wo

FAQs

What happens at the beginning of the story?

A man disappears during a holiday trip and nothing further is heard of him. Police and press inquiries produce no results, and no body is discovered.

Why do early investigations struggle to find clues?

Missing-person cases often lack clear evidence when they do not fit common categories like murder or accident. In this case, even the reported destination yields no confirmed discoveries.

How is the missing man ultimately handled by law?

After seven years without the truth emerging, he is declared dead in compliance with Section 30 of the civil code.

Aug 25, 2026

158

Uploaded by Sage