Kōbō Abe

Author profile

born

March 07, 1924 in Kita, Tokyo, Japan

died

January 22, 1993

gender

male

genre

Literature & Fiction, Short Stories, Science Fiction & Fantasy

influences

Edgar Allan Poe, Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Bertolt Brecht, Arthur Miller, Ge ...more

About this author

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Kōbō Abe, pseudonym of Kimifusa Abe, was a Japanese writer, playwright, photographer and inventor.
He was the son of a doctor and studied medicine at Tokyo University. He never practised however, giving it up to join a literary group that aimed to apply surrealist techniques to Marxist ideology.

Abe has been often compared to Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia for his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society and his modernist sensibilities.

He was first published as a poet in 1947 with Mumei shishu ("Poems of an unknown poet") and as a novelist the following year with Owarishi michi no shirube ni ("The Road Sign at the End of the Street"), which established his reputation. Though he did much work as an avant-...more

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Books by Kōbō Abe

Average rating: 3.79 · 6,861 ratings · 623 reviews · 29 distinct works

	The Woman in the Dunes 3.86 avg rating — 3,662 ratings — published 1962 — 46 editions	My rating:
	The Box Man by Kōbō Abe, E. Dale Saunders (Translator) 3.74 avg rating — 823 ratings — published 1973 — 13 editions	My rating:
	The Face of Another by Kōbō Abe, E. Dale Saunders (Translator) 3.78 avg rating — 571 ratings — published 1964 — 20 editions	My rating:
	The Ruined Map by Kōbō Abe, E. Dale Saunders (Translator) 3.61 avg rating — 390 ratings — published 1967 — 8 editions	My rating:
	Kangaroo Notebook by Kōbō Abe, Maryellen Toman Mori (Translator) 3.55 avg rating — 350 ratings — published 1991 — 6 editions	My rating:
	Secret Rendezvous by Kōbō Abe, Juliet Winters Carpenter (Translator) 3.66 avg rating — 318 ratings — published 1979 — 9 editions	My rating:
	The Ark Sakura by Kōbō Abe, Juliet Winters Carpenter (Translator) 3.72 avg rating — 293 ratings — published 1984 — 5 editions	My rating:
	Inter Ice Age 4 3.56 avg rating — 162 ratings — published 1959 — 11 editions	My rating:
	Beyond the Curve by Kōbō Abe, Juliet Winters Carpenter (Translator) 3.79 avg rating — 115 ratings — published 1991 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Three Plays: Involuntary Homicide / The Green Stockings / The Ghost is Here by Kōbō Abe, Donald Keene (Translator) 3.85 avg rating — 40 ratings — published 1993 — 2 editions	My rating:

More books by Kōbō Abe…

Quotes by Kōbō Abe

“When I look at small things, I think I shall go on living: drops of rain, leather gloves shrunk by being wet...When I look at something too big, I want to die: the Diet Building, or a map of the world...”
― Kōbō Abe, The Box Man

22 people liked it

“The most frightening thing in the world is to discover the abnormal in that which is closest to us.”
― Kōbō Abe

17 people liked it

“There wasn't a single item of importance [in the newspaper]. A tower of illusion, all of it, made of illusory bricks and full of holes. If life were made up only of imporant things, it really would be a dangerous house of glass, scarcely to be handled carelessly. But everyday life was exactly like the headlines. And so everybody, knowing the meaninglessness of existence, sets the centre of his compass at his own home.”
― Kōbō Abe, The Woman in the Dunes

tags: existentialism , home , life , news

14 people liked it

See all Kōbō Abe's quotes »

Polls

Random Sci-Fi Book for December

The Word for World is Forest, by Ursula K. Le Guin

53 votes, 21.8%

Hominids, by Robert J. Sawyer

38 votes, 15.6%

Blackout, by Connie Willis

36 votes, 14.8%

Archangel, by Sharon Shinn

35 votes, 14.4%

We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin

25 votes, 10.3%

City of Pearl, by Karen Traviss

14 votes, 5.8%

Crash, by J.G. Ballard

13 votes, 5.3%

Vast, by Linda Nagata

11 votes, 4.5%

Dr. Identity, by D. Harlan Wilson

10 votes, 4.1%

Kangaroo Notebook: A Novel, Kōbō Abe

8 votes, 3.3%

243 total votes

17 comments

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Topics Mentioning This Author

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What can you tell...: Beyond Ishiguro, Calvino, and Marquez	18	63	Feb 15, 2008 09:16am
Challenge: 50 Books: Az's Book Count [From 19th May]	33	87	Dec 20, 2010 08:47pm
Nothing but Readi...: Log For Keeping Track of Authors From Other Countries	16	172	Dec 02, 2011 05:32pm
100+ Books in 2012: Aga is reading also in 2011	202	122	Dec 31, 2011 05:59pm
75 Books: Aga is reading also in 2011	251	55	Jan 08, 2012 12:54pm
Around the World ...: Japan	5	89	Mar 11, 2012 12:45pm
Bookish: General Chatter	131	59	Apr 01, 2012 03:49pm

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