Novel
The Sea Wall
Un barrage contre le Pacifique
Marguerite Duras · 1950
Synopsis
On a plain in colonial Cambodia, around 1931, a widow, a former schoolteacher, has put all her savings into a concession that the sea invades every year. The dykes she had built against the Pacific were swept away by the tide and pierced by crabs. She lives there with her two children, Joseph and Suzanne, in a poverty that is worsening. One day, a rich and ugly planter, M. Jo, begins to court Suzanne.
Context
The novel appeared from Gallimard in 1950 and narrowly missed the Prix Goncourt. It transposes its author's childhood in Indochina and the story of her mother, who had staked all her possessions on a floodable piece of land. The book accuses the colonial administration and the corruption that delivered to small settlers land unfit for cultivation. It was translated into English as early as 1952, under the title The Sea Wall.
Who it is for
A novel of medium length, centred on a mother and her two children struggling with ruin.
Prizes and reception
René Clément made a film from it in 1958, and Rithy Panh another in 2008, with Isabelle Huppert as the mother.
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