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 completed. Laurens van der Hem Laurens van der Hem (1621–1678), was a Dutch lawyer and a collector of maps and landscape prints. He is known today for commissioning his meticulously thorough personal version of the "Atlas Maior", itself a major work of cartography and art published by his contemporary and friend Joan Blaeu. Van der Hem was born in Amsterdam as the son of the lawyer Ysbrand van der Hem and his wife Geertrui Spiegel, the daughter of the poet Hendrik Laurenszoon Spiegel. His uncles on his father's side were famous in their own right; his uncle Herman was a