Abe, Kobo
[key], pseud. of Kimifusa
Abe,
1924–93, Japanese novelist and dramatist. Although Abe trained as a doctor, he never
practiced medicine. Often compared to Kafka, he treated the contemporary
human predicament in a realistic yet symbolic style, often focusing on themes of alienation.
His minute descriptions of surrealistic situations often lend his works a nightmarish quality,
as in his best-known novel, The Woman in the Dunes (1962; tr. and film 1964,
repr. 2007), the tale of a man and a mysterious young woman who are held hostage by desert
villagers at the bottom of enormous encroaching sand dunes and forced to shovel away the
endless sand. Abe's other novels include Face of Another (1964, tr. 1966),
Beasts Head for Home (1970, tr. 2017), The Box Man (1973,
tr. 2001), Secret Rendezvous (1977, tr. 1979), and The Ark
Sakura (1984, tr. 1988). His plays include Friends (1967, tr.
1969). The first of his short stories to appear in English were collected in Beyond
the Curve (1944–66; tr. 1991). A number of his essays were collected in
The Frontier Within (tr. 2013).
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