Kobo Abe (安部公房 Abe Kōbō, pseudonym of Kimifusa Abe (Abe Kimifusa, born March 7,1924 - January 22, 1993)) was a Japanese writer.

His name is romanized as Kobo Abe in Vintage International's English-language editions of his book, while Columbia University Press's edition of Three Plays by Kōbō Abe romanizes his name as Kōbō Abe.

Biography

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Abe was born in Kita, Tokyo, grew up in then Mukden, (now Shen-yang) in Manchuria. His father was a physician who taught at the medical college. Abe went back to Japan in 1941 and began studies at Tokyo Imperial University in 1943. He graduated in 1948 with a medical degree, on the condition that he would not practice. He was first published as a poet with Mumei Shishu ("Poems of an unknown poet") in 1947. The next year he published his first novel, Owarishi michi no shirube ni (“The Road Sign at the End of the Street”) which established his reputation. He worked as an avant-garde novelist and playwright, but it was not until he published The Woman in the Dunes in 1962 that he won widespread international acclaim.

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