The Seed and the Sower The Seed and the Sower The Seed and the Sower is a book by South African writer Laurens van der Post, consisting of three interrelated stories blended into a novel, first published in 1963. The novel was filmed in 1983 as "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence", directed by Nagisa Oshima and starring David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Takeshi Kitano. The first story is set in a Japanese Prisoner of War camp in Java during World War II and is a first person account of the relationship between John Lawrence, a British officer, and Sergeant Hara, one of the camp’s
Laurens van der Hem January 1668. On 9 March 1711, the German travelling scholar Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach paid a visit to Laurens' daughter Agatha ("Jungfer van der Gemm") to view her "Blauischen Atlas", for which the Comte d'Avaux had offered her 20,000 guilders, but which she valued at 50,000 guilders. Conrad von Uffenbach was reportedly highly impressed by the colouring done by the master he referred to as "Dirck Janssen van Santen". After Van der Hem's death in 1678, the atlas was inherited by his wife and after her death by his daughter Agatha and then his other daughter Agnes. After Agnes' death