Tanizaki Prize
Among the honors Abe received were the Akutagawa Prize in 1951 for "The Crime of S. Karuma," 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. Abe was mentioned multiple times as a possible recipient, but his early death precluded that possibility.