1964 — There were kitchens, there were stoves with fires burning in them, there were apple crates, in place of desks, piled full of books, there were kitchens, there were sunken hearths, there were lamps, there were stoves with fires burning in them, there were torn shoji, there were sooty ceilings, there were kitchens, there were clocks that were running and clocks that weren’t, there were blaring radios and broken radios, there were kitchens and stoves with fires in them. — Kobo Abé, The Woman in the Dunes, Chapter 24, 1962. Translated from Japanese by E. Dale Saunders.
