  , pseudonym of , was a japanese writer, playwright, photographer and inventor. 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.new york times.timothy iles, abe kobo: an exploration of his prose, drama, and theatre, epap, 2000. ==early life== abe was born in kita, tokyo, tokyo and grew up in mukden (now shenyang) in manchuria. his father was a physician who taught at a local medical college. 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. abe returned to japan in 1941 and began studies at tokyo imperial university in 1943. he returned to manchuria around the end of world war ii. he graduated in 1948 with a medical degree, on the condition that he would not practice. having failed his exam several times, and already a successful author, this was attached to cultural notions of "saving face." ==career== he was first published as a poet in 1947 with mumei-shishÅ« ("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. 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 he won widespread international acclaim. in the 1960s, he collaborated with japanese director hiroshi teshigahara in the film adaptations of the pitfall, [[w
1924_births 1993_deaths 20th-century_dramatists_and_playwrights 20th-century_novelists Fellows_of_the_American_Academy_of_Arts_and_Sciences Japanese_dramatists_and_playwrights Japanese_fantasy_writers Japanese_novelists Japanese_science_fiction_writers Japanese_short_story_writers Magic_realism_writers Postmodern_writers University_of_Tokyo_alumni Winners_of_the_Akutagawa_Prize Writers_from_Tokyo