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Kobo Abe, or Abe Kobo, [ pseudonym of Kimifusa Abe (Abe Kimifusa) ] March 7, 1924 - January 22, 1993) was a Japanese writer.

He was born in Tokyo, grew up in Manchuria and graduated in 1948 with a medical degree from Tokyo Imperial University on the condition that he wouldn't practice. He published his first novel in 1948 and worked as an avant-garde novelist and playwright, but it wasn't until he published The Woman in the Dunes in 1960 that he won widespread international acclaim.

In the 1960s, he collaborated with Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara in adapting to film The Pitfall, Woman in the Dunes, The Face of Another and The Ruined Map.

Abe's surreal and often nightmarish explorations of the individual in contemporary society earned him comparisons to Kafka and his influence extended well beyond Japan, particularly with the success of Woman in the Dunes at the Cannes Film Festival.

List of books available in English

Woman in the Dunes

Inter Ice Age 4

The Face of Another

The Ruined Map

The Man Who Turned Into a Stick

The Box Man

Kangaroo Notebook

The Ark Sakura

Secret Rendezvous

Beyond the Curve (short stories)

Three Plays by Kobo Abe

Friends (play)

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