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, pen name of , was a Japanese writer, playwright, musician, photographer, and inventor. He is best known for his 1962 novel '' The Woman in the Dunes'' that was made into an award-winning film by
Hiroshi Teshigahara was a Japanese avant-garde filmmaker and artist from the Japanese New Wave era. He is best known for the 1964 film '' Woman in the Dunes''. He is also known for directing other titles such as '' The Face of Another'' (1966), ''Natsu No Heitai'' ( ...
in 1964. Abe has often been compared to
Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...
for his
modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
sensibilities and his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society.


Biography

Abe was born on March 7, 1924 in Kita, Tokyo, Japan and grew up in Mukden (now
Shenyang Shenyang (, ; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly known as Fengtian () or by its Manchu language, Manchu name Mukden, is a major China, Chinese sub-provincial city and the List of capitals in China#Province capitals, provincial capital of Lia ...
) in
Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...
. Abe's family was in Tokyo at the time due to his father's year of medical research in Tokyo. His mother had been raised in
Hokkaido is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...
, while he experienced childhood in Manchuria. This triplicate assignment of origin was influential to Abe, who told Nancy Shields in a 1978 interview, "I am essentially a man without a hometown. This may be what lies behind the 'hometown phobia' that runs in the depth of my feelings. All things that are valued for their stability offend me." As a child, Abe was interested in insect-collecting, mathematics, and reading. His favorite authors were
Fyodor Dostoyevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...
,
Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...
,
Karl Jaspers Karl Theodor Jaspers (, ; 23 February 1883 – 26 February 1969) was a German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry, and philosophy. After being trained in and practicing psychiatry, Jasper ...
,
Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...
,
Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
, and
Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
. Abe returned to Tokyo briefly in April 1940 to study at Seijo High School, but a lung condition forced his return to Mukden, where he read Jaspers, Heidegger, Dostoyevsky, and
Edmund Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...
. Abe began to study medicine at
Tokyo Imperial University , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...
in 1943, partially out of respect for his father, but also because " ose students who specialized in medicine were exempted from becoming soldiers. My friends who chose the humanities were killed in the war." He returned to Manchuria around the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Specifically, Abe left the Tokyo University Medical School in October 1944, returning to his father's clinic in Mukden. That winter, his father died of eruptive typhus. Returning to Tokyo with his father's ashes, Abe reentered the medical school. Abe started writing novellas and short stories during his last year in university. He graduated in 1948 with a medical degree, joking once that he was allowed to graduate only on the condition that he would not practice. In 1945 Abe married Machi Yamada, an artist and stage director, and the couple saw successes within their fields in similar time frames. Initially, they lived in an old barracks within a bombed-out area of the city center. Abe sold pickles and charcoal on the street to pay their bills. The couple joined a number of artistic study groups, such as Yoru no Kai (Group of the Night or The Night Society) and ''Nihon Bungaku Gakko'' (Japanese Literary School). Their daughter, Abe Neri, was born in 1954. As the postwar period progressed, Abe's stance as an intellectual pacifist led to his joining the
Japanese Communist Party The is a left-wing to far-left political party in Japan. With approximately 270,000 members belonging to 18,000 branches, it is one of the largest non-governing communist parties in the world. The party advocates the establishment of a democr ...
, with which he worked to organize laborers in poor parts of Tokyo. Soon after receiving the
Akutagawa Prize The is a Japanese literary award presented biannually. Because of its prestige and the considerable attention the winner receives from the media, it is, along with the Naoki Prize, one of Japan's most sought after literary prizes. History Th ...
in 1951, Abe began to feel the constraints of the Communist Party's rules and regulations alongside doubts about what meaningful artistic works could be created in the genre of "socialist realism." By 1956, Abe began writing in solidarity with the Polish workers who were protesting against their Communist government, drawing the Communist Party's ire. The criticism reaffirmed his stance: "The Communist Party put pressure on me to change the content of the article and apologize. But I refused. I said I would never change my opinion on the matter. This was my first break with the Party." The next year, Abe traveled to Eastern Europe for the 20th Convention of the Soviet Communist Party. He saw little of interest there, but the arts gave him some solace. He visited Kafka's house in Prague, read Rilke and
Karel Čapek Karel Čapek (; 9 January 1890 – 25 December 1938) was a Czech writer, playwright and critic. He has become best known for his science fiction, including his novel '' War with the Newts'' (1936) and play '' R.U.R.'' (''Rossum's Universal ...
, reflected on his idol
Lu Xun Zhou Shuren (25 September 1881 – 19 October 1936), better known by his pen name Lu Xun (or Lu Sun; ; Wade–Giles: Lu Hsün), was a Chinese writer, essayist, poet, and literary critic. He was a leading figure of modern Chinese literature. W ...
, and was moved by a
Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (, ; rus, Влади́мир Влади́мирович Маяко́вский, , vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ məjɪˈkofskʲɪj, Ru-Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.ogg, links=y; – 14 Apr ...
play in
Brno Brno ( , ; german: Brünn ) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic ...
. The Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 disgusted Abe. He attempted to leave the Communist Party, but resignations from the party were not accepted at the time. In 1960, he participated in the Anpo Protests against revision of the US-Japan Security Treaty as part of the pan-ideological Young Japan Society. He later wrote a play about the protests, ''The Day the Stones Speak'', which was staged several times in Japan and China in 1960 and 1961. In the summer of 1961, Abe joined a group of other authors in criticizing the cultural policies of the Communist Party. He was forcibly expelled from the party the following year. His political activity came to an end in 1967 in the form of a statement published by himself,
Yukio Mishima , born , was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, Nationalism, nationalist, and founder of the , an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was ...
,
Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal a ...
, and
Jun Ishikawa was the pen name of a modernism, modernist author, translator and literary critic active in Shōwa period Japan. His real name (written in the same ''kanji'') was Ishikawa Kiyoshi. Early life Ishikawa was born in the Asakusa district of Tokyo a ...
, protesting the treatment of writers, artists, and intellectuals in Communist China. According to translator
John Nathan John Weil Nathan (born March 1940) is an American translator, writer, scholar, filmmaker, and Japanologist. His translations from Japanese into English include the works of Yukio Mishima, Kenzaburō Ōe, Kōbō Abe, and Natsume Sōseki. Nathan ...
, this statement led to the falling-out between Abe and fellow writer
Kenzaburō Ōe is a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His novels, short stories and essays, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues, i ...
. His experiences in Manchuria were also deeply influential on his writing, imprinting terrors and fever dreams that became surrealist hallmarks of his works. In his recollections of Mukden, these markers are evident: "The fact is, it may not have been trash in the center of the marsh at all; it may have been crows. I do have a memory of thousands of crows flying up from the swamp at dusk, as if the surface of the swamp were being lifted up into the air." The trash of the marsh was a truth of life, as were the crows, yet Abe's recollections of them tie them distinctively. Further experiences with the swamp centered around its use as a staking ground for condemned criminals with " heirheads—now food for crows—appearing suddenly out of the darkness and disappearing again, terrified and attracted to us." These ideas are present in much of Abe's work.


Career

Abe was first published as a poet in 1947 with '' Mumei-shishū'' (''"Poems of an unknown poet"''), which he paid for himself, 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. When he received the Akutagawa Prize in 1951, his ability to continue publishing was confirmed. Though he did much work as an
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
novelist and playwright, it was not until the publication of '' The Woman in the Dunes'' in 1962 that Abe won widespread international acclaim. In the 1960s, he collaborated with Japanese director
Hiroshi Teshigahara was a Japanese avant-garde filmmaker and artist from the Japanese New Wave era. He is best known for the 1964 film '' Woman in the Dunes''. He is also known for directing other titles such as '' The Face of Another'' (1966), ''Natsu No Heitai'' ( ...
on the film adaptations of '' The Pitfall,'' ''
Woman in the Dunes is a 1964 Japanese New Wave drama directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara, starring Eiji Okada as an entomologist searching for insects and Kyōko Kishida as the titular woman. It received positive critical reviews and was nominated for two Academy A ...
,'' ''
The Face of Another is a 1964 novel written by the Japanese novelist Kōbō Abe. Like other stories written by this author, the novel explores the alienation of modern man from urban society. It is written in the first person narrative mode, and is divided into ...
,'' and ''
The Man Without a Map is a 1968 Japanese film directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara and starring Shintaro Katsu. The screenplay was adapted by Kōbō Abe from his novel '' The Ruined Map''. This was the fifth and final film collaboration between Teshigahara and Abe.Berra, ...
''. ''Woman in the Dunes'' received widespread critical acclaim and was released only four months after Abe was expelled from the Japanese Communist Party. In 1971, he founded the Abe Studio, an acting studio in Tokyo. Until the end of the decade, he trained performers and directed plays. The decision to found the studio came two years after he first directed his own work in 1969, a production of ''The Man Who Turned Into A Stick''. The production's sets were designed by Abe's wife, and
Hisashi Igawa Hisashi Igawa (井川比佐志 born 17 November 1936) is a Japanese actor who has appeared in such films as Akira Kurosawa's '' Dodesukaden'', '' Ran'' and ''Madadayo is a 1993 Japanese comedy-drama film. It is the thirtieth and final film to ...
starred. Abe had become dissatisfied with ability of the theatre to materialize the abstract, reducing it to a passive medium. Until 1979, he wrote, directed, and produced 14 plays at the Abe Studio. He also published two novels, ''Box Man'' (1973) and ''Secret Rendezvous'' (1977), alongside a series of essays, musical scores, and photographic exhibits. The Seibu Theater, an avant-garde theater in the new department store Parco, was allegedly established in 1973 specifically for Abe, though many other artists were given the chance to use it. The Abe Studio production of ''The Glasses of Love Are Rose Colored'' (1973) opened there. Later, the entirety of the Seibu Museum was used to present one of Abe's photographic works, ''An Exhibition of Images: I''. The Abe Studio provided a foil for much of the contemporary scene in Japanese theater, contrasting with the Haiyuza's conventional productions, opting to focus on dramatic, as opposed to physical, expression. It was a safe space for young performers, whom Abe would often recruit from the Toho Gakuen College in Chofu City, on the outskirts of Tokyo, where he taught. The average age of the performers in the studio was about 27 throughout the decade, as members left and fresh faces were brought in. Abe "deftly" handled issues arising from difference in stage experience. In 1977 Abe was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
.


Awards

Among the honors Abe received were the Akutagawa Prize in 1951 for ''The Crime of S. Karuma,'' the
Yomiuri Prize The is a literary award in Japan. The prize was founded in 1949 by the Yomiuri Shinbun Company to help form a "strong cultural nation". The winner is awarded two million Japanese yen and an inkstone. Award categories For the first two years, ...
in 1962 for ''The Woman in the Dunes,'' and the
Tanizaki Prize The Tanizaki Prize (谷崎潤一郎賞 ''Tanizaki Jun'ichirō Shō''), named in honor of the Japanese novelist Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, is one of Japan's most sought-after literary awards. It was established in 1965 by the publishing company Chūō K ...
in 1967 for the play ''Friends.'' Kenzaburō Ōe credited Abe and other modern Japanese authors for " reatingthe way to the
Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
", which he himself won. Abe was mentioned multiple times as a possible recipient, but his early death precluded that possibility.


Bibliography


Novels


Collected short stories


Plays


Essays


Poetry


References


External links

* * * *
Abe Kobo at ibiblio.org
* * *

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abe Kobo Japanese fantasy writers Japanese science fiction writers Japanese male short story writers Writers from Tokyo 1924 births 1993 deaths University of Tokyo alumni Magic realism writers Akutagawa Prize winners Yomiuri Prize winners Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Postmodern writers 20th-century Japanese novelists 20th-century Japanese dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Japanese short story writers 20th-century Japanese male writers 20th-century pseudonymous writers