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Kōbō Abe

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Kōbō Abe
Native name
安部 公房
BornAbe Kimifusa (安部 公房)
(1924-03-07)March 7, 1924[1]
Kita, Tokyo, Japan
DiedJanuary 22, 1993(1993-01-22) (aged 68)
Tokyo, Japan
OccupationWriter
LanguageJapanese
EducationSeijo High School
Alma materUniversity of Tokyo
GenreAbsurdist fiction, surrealism
Literary movementModernism
Notable worksThe Woman in the Dunes
The Face of Another
The Box Man
Notable awardsAkutagawa Prize
Yomiuri Prize
Tanizaki Prize
SpouseAbe Machi
ChildrenAbe Neri

Kōbō Abe (安部 公房, Abe Kōbō), pen name of Kimifusa Abe (安部 公房, Abe Kimifusa, March 7, 1924 – January 22, 1993), 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 in 1964.[2] Abe has often been compared to Franz Kafka for his modernist sensibilities and his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society.[3][4][5]

Biography

Abe was born on March 7, 1924[1][6] in Kita, Tokyo, Japan and grew up in Mukden (now Shenyang) in Manchuria.[2][1] Abe's family was in Tokyo at the time due to his father's year of medical research in Tokyo.[7] His mother had been raised in Hokkaido, 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.[2] 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."[7] As a child, Abe was interested in insect-collecting, mathematics, and reading. His favorite authors were Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Franz Kafka, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Edgar Allan Poe.[1]

Abe prepares gyōza

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. Abe began to study medicine at Tokyo Imperial University in 1943, partially out of respect for his father, but also because "[t]hose students who specialized in medicine were exempted from becoming soldiers. My friends who chose the humanities were killed in the war."[7] He returned to Manchuria around the end of World War II.[1] Specifically, Abe left the Tokyo University Medical School in October 1944, returning to his father's clinic in Mukden.[7] 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.[2][7]

In 1945 Abe married Machi Yamada, an artist and stage director, and the couple saw successes within their fields in similar time frames.[7] 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.[8]

As the postwar period progressed, Abe's stance as an intellectual pacifist led to his joining the Japanese Communist Party, with which he worked to organize laborers in poor parts of Tokyo. Soon after receiving the Akutagawa Prize 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."[7] 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."[7]: 35 [a] 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, reflected on his idol Lu Xun, and was moved by a Mayakovsky play in Brno.[7]

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.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12] His political activity came to an end in 1967 in the form of a statement published by himself, Yukio Mishima, Yasunari Kawabata, and Jun Ishikawa, protesting the treatment of writers, artists, and intellectuals in Communist China.[7] According to translator John Nathan, this statement led to the falling-out between Abe and fellow writer Kenzaburō Ōe.[13]

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."[7] 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 "[their] heads—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,[1] 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.[1] When he received the Akutagawa Prize in 1951, his ability to continue publishing was confirmed.[7] Though he did much work as an avant-garde novelist and playwright, it was not until the publication of The Woman in the Dunes in 1962 that Abe won widespread international acclaim.[14]

In the 1960s, he collaborated with Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara on the film adaptations of The Pitfall, Woman in the Dunes, The Face of Another, and The Man Without a Map. 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.[7] 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 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.[7] 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.[7]

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.[7]

In 1977 Abe was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[15]

Awards

Among the honors Abe received were the Akutagawa Prize in 1951 for The Crime of S. Karuma,[16] the Yomiuri Prize in 1962 for The Woman in the Dunes, and the Tanizaki Prize in 1967 for the play Friends. Kenzaburō Ōe credited Abe and other modern Japanese authors for "[creating] the way to the Nobel Prize", which he himself won.[17][18] Abe was mentioned multiple times as a possible recipient, but his early death precluded that possibility.[7]

Bibliography

Novels

Year Japanese Title English Title Translations available Notes
1948 終りし道の標に
Owarishi michi no shirube ni 		At the Guidepost at the End of the Road
1954 飢餓同盟
Kiga doumei 		Starving Unions
1957 けものたちは故郷をめざす
Kemono tachi wa kokyou wo mezasu 		Beasts Head for Home Richard F. Calichman
1959 第四間氷期
Dai-Yon Kampyōki 		Inter Ice Age 4 E. Dale Saunders [1] Illustrated by Abe Machi
1960 石の眼
Ishi no me 		Stony Eyes
1962 砂の女
Suna no onna 		The Woman in the Dunes E. Dale Saunders Adapted into an international film[1]
1964 他人の顔
Tanin no kao 		The Face of Another E. Dale Saunders Adapted into a film by the same title[1]
1964 榎本武揚
Enomoto Takeaki 		Takeaki Enomoto Commissioned conversion to a play by theatrical company Kumo and directed by Hiroshi Akutagawa

Mixed reviews: Keene preferred the novel to the play, while Oe considered it "genuinely new."[7]

1966 人間そっくり
Ningen sokkuri 		The Double of Human Being
1967 燃えつきた地図
Moetsukita chizu 		The Ruined Map E. Dale Saunders [1]
1973 箱男
Hako otoko 		The Box Man E. Dale Saunders [1]
1977 密会
Mikkai 		Secret Rendezvous Juliet Winters Carpenter, 1979 [1]
1984 方舟さくら丸
Hakobune sakura maru 		The Ark Sakura Juliet Winters Carpenter, 1988 [1]
1991 カンガルー・ノート
Kangaruu noto 		Kangaroo Notebook Maryellen Toman Mori
1994 飛ぶ男
Tobu otoko 		The Flying Man Incomplete

Collected short stories

Year Japanese Title English Title Translations available Notes
1949 唖むすめ
Oshimusume 		"The Deaf Girl" Andrew Horvat Collected in Four Stories by Kobo Abe
1949 デンドロカカリヤ
Dendorokakariya 		"Dendrocacalia" Juliet Winters Carpenter Collected in Beyond the Curve
1949 夢の逃亡
Yume no toubou 		"The Dream Escape"
1950 赤い繭
Akai mayu 		"The Red Cocoon" Lane Dunlop Collected in A Late chrysanthemum: Twenty-One Stories from the Japanese
1950 洪水
Kouzui 		"The Flood" Lane Dunlop Collected in A Late chrysanthemum: Twenty-One Stories from the Japanese
1951 魔法のチョーク
Mahou no chouku 		"The Magic Chalk" Alison Kibrick Collected in The Showa Anthology: Modern Japanese Short Stories
1951 壁―S・カルマ氏の犯罪
Kabe―S・Karuma shi no hanzai 		The Wall ― The Crime of S. Karma Juliet Winters Carpenter Winner of the Akutagawa Prize

Excerpt collected in Beyond the Curve

1951 闖入者
Chinnyusha 		"Intruders" Juliet Winters Carpenter Collected in Beyond the Curve
1951 詩人の生涯
Shijin no Shougai 		"The Life of a Poet" Juliet Winters Carpenter Collected in Beyond the Curve
1951 飢えた皮膚
Ueta hihu 		"The Starving Skin"
1952 ノアの方舟
Noa no hakobune 		"Noah's Ark" Juliet Winters Carpenter Collected in Beyond the Curve
1952 水中都市
Suichu toshi 		"The Underwater City"
1954 犬
Inu 		"The Dog" Andrew Horvat Collected in Four Stories by Kobo Abe
1954 変形の記録
Henkei no kiroku 		"Record of a Transformation" Juliet Winters Carpenter Collected in Beyond the Curve
1950 棒
Bou 		"The Stick" Lane Dunlop Collected in A Late chrysanthemum: Twenty-One Stories from the Japanese
1956 R62号の発明
R62 gou no hatumei 		"Inventions by No. R62"
1957 誘惑者
Yuwakusha 		"Beguiled" Juliet Winters Carpenter Collected in Beyond the Curve
1957 夢の兵士
Yume no heishi 		"The Dream Soldier" First translation, 1973 by Andrew Horvat
Second translation, 1991 by Juliet Winters Carpenter 		First translation collected in Four Stories by Kobo Abe
Second translation collected in Beyond the Curve
1957 鉛の卵
Namari no tamago 		"The Egg of Pb"
1958 使者
Shisha 		"The Special Envoy" Juliet Winters Carpenter Collected in Beyond the Curve
1960 賭け
Kake 		"The Bet" Juliet Winters Carpenter Collected in Beyond the Curve
1961 無関係な死
Mukankei na shi 		"An Irrelevant Death" Juliet Winters Carpenter Collected in Beyond the Curve
1966 カーブの向う
Kabu no mukou 		"Beyond the Curve" Juliet Winters Carpenter First collection published in English[1]
1964 時の崖
Toki no gake 		"The Cliff of Time" Andrew Horvat Collected in Four Stories by Kobo Abe
19?? ? "Hand" Ted Mack Appears in Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, No. 27 (Winter 1996–97), pp. 50–57[19]

Plays

Year Japanese Title English Title Translations available Notes
時間の崖
Jikan no gake 		The Cliff of Time Donald Keene Collected in The Man Who Turned Into A Stick: Three Related Plays
スーツケース
Sūtsukēsu 		Suitcase Donald Keene Collected in The Man Who Turned Into A Stick: Three Related Plays
1955 制服
Seifuku 		Uniforms
1955 どれい狩り
Dorei gari 		Slave Hunting
1955 快速船
Kaisoku sen 		The Speedy Ship
1957[20] 棒になった男
Bou ni natta otoko 		The Man Who Turned Into A Stick Donald Keene Collected in The Man Who Turned Into A Stick: Three Related Plays

The 1969 production was the first time Abe directed his own work. His wife designed the set.[7]

1958 幽霊はここにいる
Yuurei wa koko ni iru 		The Ghost Is Here Donald Keene Collected in Three Plays by Kōbō Abe

Award-winning production by Koreya Senda Well received in East Germany[7]

1965 おまえにも罪がある
Omae nimo tsumi ga aru 		You, Too, Are Guilty Ted T. Takaya Collected in Modern Japanese Drama: An Anthology
1967 友達
Tomodachi 		Friends Donald Keene Performed in English in Honolulu[1]
Akutagawa Award winner 1967

Adapted into a film in 1988, directed by Kjell-Åke Andersson[7]

1967 榎本武揚
Enomoto Takeaki 		Takeaki Enomoto Alt. translation: Enomoto Buyo[7]

Directed by the son of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, "father of the Japanese short story"[7]

1971 未必の故意
Mihitsu no koi 		Involuntary Homicide Donald Keene Collected in Three Plays by Kōbō Abe
1971 ガイド・ブック
Gaido bukku 		Guide Book
1973 愛の眼鏡は色ガラス
Ai no megane wa iro garasu 		Loving Glasses Are Colored Ones
1974 緑色のストッキング
Midori iro no sutokkingu 		Green Stockings Donald Keene Collected in Three Plays by Kōbō Abe
1975 ウエー（新どれい狩り）
Uē (Shin dorei gari) 		Ue (Slave Hunting, New Version), The Animal Hunter James R. Brandon
1976 案内人GUIDE BOOK II
Annai nin 		The Guide Man, GUIDE BOOK II
1977 水中都市GUIDE BOOK III
Suichu toshi 		The Underwater City, GUIDE BOOK III
1978 S・カルマ氏の犯罪
S・Karuma shi no hanzai 		The Crime of S. Karuma
1979 仔象は死んだ
Kozou wa shinda 		An Elephant Calf Is Dead

Essays

Year Japanese Title English Title Translations available Notes
1944 詩と詩人 (意識と無意識)
Shi to shijin [Ishiki to muishiki] 		Poetry and Poets (Consciousness and the Unconscious) Richard F. Calichman Collected in The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kōbō
1954 文学における理論と実践
Bungaku ni okeru riron to jissen 		Theory and Practice in Literature Richard F. Calichman Collected in The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kōbō
1955 猛獣の心に計算機の手を:文学とは何か
Mōjū no kokoro ni keisanki no te wo: Bungaku to ha nanika 		The Hand of a Calculator with the Heart of a Beast: What Is Literature? Richard F. Calichman Collected in The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kōbō
1957 アメリカ発見
Amerika hakken 		Discovering America Richard F. Calichman Collected in The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kōbō
1960 映像は言語の壁を破壊するか
Eizō ha gengo no kabe wo hakai suru ka 		Does the Visual Image Destroy the Walls of Language? Richard F. Calichman Collected in The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kōbō
1960 芸術の革命:芸術運動の理論
Geijutsu no kakumei: Geijutsu undō no riron 		Artistic Revolution: Theory of the Art Movement Richard F. Calichman Collected in The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kōbō
1965 現代における教育の可能性:人間存在の本質に触れて
Gendai ni okeru kyōiku no kanōsei: Ningen sonzai no honshitsu ni furete 		Possibilities for Education Today: On the Essence of Human Existence Richard F. Calichman Collected in The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kōbō
1966 隣人を超えるもの
Rinjin wo koeru mono 		Beyond the Neighbor Richard F. Calichman Collected in The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kōbō
1968 ミリタリールック
Miritarī rukku 		The Military Look Richard F. Calichman Collected in The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kōbō
1968 異端のパスポート
Itan no pasupōto 		Passport of Heresy Richard F. Calichman Collected in The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kōbō
1968 内なる辺境
Uchi naru henkyō 		The Frontier Within Richard F. Calichman Collected in The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kōbō
1969 続:内なる辺境
Zoku: Uchi naru henkyō 		The Frontier Within, Part II Richard F. Calichman Collected in The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kōbō
1975 笑う月
Warau tsuki 		The Laughing Moon
1981 桜は異端諮問間の紋章

Sakura wa itan shinmonkan no monshō

The Dark Side of the Cherry Blossoms Donald Keene Published in The Washington Post,[21] The Guardian, and The Asahi Shinbun[3]

Poetry

Year Japanese Title English Title Translations available Notes
1947 無名詩集
Mumei shishu 		Poems of an Unknown Poet
1978 人さらい
Hito sarai 		Kidnap

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Hoiberg, Dale H., ed. (2010). "Abe Kobo". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. I: A-ak Bayes (15th ed.). Chicago, Illinois: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. pp. 23–24. ISBN 978-1-59339-837-8.[irrelevant citation]
  2. ^ a b c d Allinson, Gary D. (1999). The Columbia guide to modern Japanese history. Internet Archive. New York : Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-11144-7.
  3. ^ a b Bolton, Christopher (2009). Sublime voices : the fictional science and scientific fiction of Abe Kōbō. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center. ISBN 978-0-674-03278-1. OCLC 261174053.
  4. ^ New York Times.[dead link]
  5. ^ Timothy Iles, Abe Kobo: an Exploration of his Prose, Drama, and Theatre, EPAP, 2000.
  6. ^ "Abe, Kobo". Who Was Who in America, 1993–1996, vol. 11. New Providence, N.J.: Marquis Who's Who. 1996. p. 1. ISBN 0837902258.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Shields, Nancy (1996). Fake Fish: The Theater of Kobo Abe. New York & Tokyo: Weatherhill. ISBN 9780834803541.
  8. ^ "HORAGAI: Abe Kobo". www.horagai.com. Retrieved April 12, 2022.
  9. ^ Schnellbächer, T. (2004). Abe Kōbō, Literary Strategist: The Evolution of His Agenda and Rhetoric in the Context of Postwar Japanese Avant-garde and Communist Artists' Movements. Iaponia insula. Iudicium. pp. 423–427. ISBN 978-3-89129-822-0.
  10. ^ Kapur, Nick, 1980- (2018). Japan at the crossroads : conflict and compromise after Anpo. Cambridge, Massachusetts. p. 177. ISBN 978-0-674-98850-7. OCLC 1041937833.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  11. ^ Kapur, Nick, 1980- (2018). Japan at the crossroads : conflict and compromise after Anpo. Cambridge, Massachusetts. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-674-98850-7. OCLC 1041937833.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ Kapur, Nick, 1980- (2018). Japan at the crossroads : conflict and compromise after Anpo. Cambridge, Massachusetts. pp. 213–14. ISBN 978-0-674-98850-7. OCLC 1041937833.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  13. ^ Nathan, John (2008). Living Carelessly in Tokyo and Elsewhere: A Memoir. Simon and Schuster.
  14. ^ Rogala, Jozef (2001). A Collector's Guide to Books on Japan in English: A Select List of Over 2500 Titles. Psychology Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-873410-90-5.
  15. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter A" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved March 18, 2011.
  16. ^ Davis, Paul, ed. (2003). The Bedford Anthology of World Literature: The Twentieth Century, 1900-The Present. Boston & New York: Bedford/St. Martin's. p. 915. ISBN 031240266X.
  17. ^ Sterngold, James (October 14, 1994). "Nobel in Literature Goes to Kenzaburo Oe of Japan". The New York Times.
  18. ^ Streitfeld, David (October 14, 1994). "Japanese Writer Oe Wins Nobel". The Washington Post.
  19. ^ Abe, Kôbô; Mack, Ted (1996). "Hand". Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art (27): 50–57. ISSN 0161-486X. JSTOR 41807316.
  20. ^ Hochman, Stanley (1984). McGraw-Hill encyclopedia of world drama: an international reference work in 5 vol, Volume 1. VNR AG. p. 2. ISBN 0-07-079169-4.
  21. ^ Abe, Kobo (November 1981). "The Dark Side of the Cherry Blossoms". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 15, 2022.
  1. ^ Though see the different analysis in Schnellbächer, who states that Abe's "evaluation of the insurrections in Poland and Hungary is curiously helpless, in both cases mirroring the official communist reading"[9]
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