Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) is one of the most eminent French writers of the 20th century, laureate of the Prix Goncourt. She has about two dozen novels and stories and about the same number of theatrical plays and films, many of which she directed herself. She wrote the script for the classic film by A. Rene “Hiroshima, my love” (1959). The novel “A Dam Against the Pacific Ocean” is her first major literary success. The novel was made into a film by René Clément (1958); in the new film adaptation (2008, France, Belgium, Cambodia), the main role was played by Isabelle Huppert. The novel is largely autobiographical and inspired by memories of childhood. The main characters are a family of French settlers in Indochina, a mother and two children. Suzanne is seventeen, Joseph is twenty. They are beautiful, full of life, but are forced to live in the village, in extreme poverty, with a mother obsessed with the idea of building a dam to protect their crops from the ocean that floods them every year. The dam is built, but the ocean is still stronger. Duras loves his heroes and knows how to infect his readers with this love. All members of this family are far from angels, but in a world that is cruel to them, they retain the ability to laugh, rejoice, hope and love.