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 Kuik Laurens van Kuik Laurens van Kuik (1889, 's Gravenmoer, Netherlands – 1963, Den Haag) was a teacher before he, in 1911, fascinated by the arts, started working as an autodidact painter. In 1913, he became so enthralled and driven as artist that he became a teacher at the school in North Brabant, and went to live in Rotterdam. In 1917, he became one of the founders of the Rotterdam-based artistic movement known as "De Branding". Other members included Herman Bieling, Ger ladage (aka Gerwhl), Bernard Toon Gits, Jan Sirks and Wim Schmacher. Van Kuik's early works are to some extent