The Ark Sakura
The Ark Sakura

Author: Kobo Abe

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2009-02-10

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0307389634

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A classic from the renowned Japanese novelist about isolation and the threat of a nuclear holocaust, The Ark Sakura is as timely today as it was at its original publication. In this Kafkaesque allegorical fantasy, Mole has converted a huge underground quarry into an “ark” capable of surviving the coming nuclear holocaust and is now in search of his crew. He falls victim, however, to the wiles of a con man-cum-insect dealer. In the surreal drama that ensues, the ark is invaded by a gang of youths and a sinister group of elderly people called the Broom Brigade, led by Mole's odious father, while Mole becomes trapped in the ark's central piece of equipment, a giant toilet powerful enough to flush almost anything, including chopped-up humans, out to sea.

The Ark Sakura
The Ark Sakura

Author: Kōbō Abe

Publisher: Knopf

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13:

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The protagonist of Abe's creation, nicknamed Mole by himself and Pig by others, is a dreamer and something of a mad inventor. He turns an underground quarry into an ark that can survive a nuclear war and starts to recruit passengers to accompany him on a voyage.

Beyond the Curve
Beyond the Curve

Author: Kōbō Abe

Publisher: Kodansha Amer Incorporated

Published: 1993-02-01

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 9784770016904

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A collection of works including such stories as "An Irrelevant Death," "The Dream Soldier," "Dendrocalia," "The Special Envoy," and "The Crime of S. Karma"

Kangaroo Notebook
Kangaroo Notebook

Author: Kobo Abe

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 1997-04-29

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 0679746633

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In the last novel written before his death in 1993, one of Japan's most distinguished novelists proffered a surreal vision of Japanese society that manages to be simultaneously fearful and jarringly funny. The narrator of Kangaroo Notebook wakes on morning to discover that his legs are growing radish sprouts, an ailment that repulses his doctor but provides the patient with the unusual ability to snack on himself. In short order, Kobo Abe's unraveling protagonist finds himself hurtling in a hospital bed to the very shores of hell. Abe has assembled a cast of oddities into a coherent novel, one imbued with unexpected meaning. Translated from the Japanese by Maryellen Toman Mori.

Secret Rendezvous
Secret Rendezvous

Author: Kobo Abe

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2020-10-29

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 0141993219

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'A gorgeously entertaining, provocative book' Chicago Tribune It is 4am when the ambulance comes to take the man's wife away - although no-one has called it, and there is nothing wrong with her. As he sets out to find her, he finds himself in the corridors of a vast underground hospital, where he encounters sinister medics, freakish sexual experiments and the unmistakable feeling of being watched. Even when he is suddenly appointed as the hospital's chief of security, reporting to a man who thinks he is a horse, he will not give up his search. Secret Rendezvous is a nightmarish satire of bureaucracy, medicine and modern life. 'Reads as if it were the collaborative effort of Hieronymus Bosch, Franz Kafka and Mel Brooks' Chicago Sun Times

The Box Man
The Box Man

Author: Kobo Abe

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2011-12-14

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 030781369X

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Kobo Abe, the internationally acclaimed author of Woman in the Dunes, combines wildly imaginative fantasies and naturalistic prose to create narratives reminiscent of the work of Kafka and Beckett. In this eerie and evocative masterpiece, the nameless protagonist gives up his identity and the trappings of a normal life to live in a large cardboard box he wears over his head. Wandering the streets of Tokyo and scribbling madly on the interior walls of his box, he describes the world outside as he sees or perhaps imagines it, a tenuous reality that seems to include a mysterious rifleman determined to shoot him, a seductive young nurse, and a doctor who wants to become a box man himself. The Box Man is a marvel of sheer originality and a bizarrely fascinating fable about the very nature of identity. Translated from the Japanese by E. Dale Saunders.

The Ruined Map
The Ruined Map

Author: Kobo Abe

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2011-12-14

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0307813703

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Of all the great Japanese novelists, Kobe Abe was indubitably the most versatile. With The Ruined Map, he crafted a mesmerizing literary crime novel that combines the narrative suspense of Chandler with the psychological depth of Dostoevsky. Mr. Nemuro, a respected salesman, disappeared over half a year ago, but only now does his alluring yet alcoholic wife hire a private eye. The nameless detective has but two clues: a photo and a matchbook. With these he embarks upon an ever more puzzling pursuit that leads him into the depths of Tokyo's dangerous underworld, where he begins to lose the boundaries of his own identity. Surreal, fast-paced, and hauntingly dreamlike, Abe’s masterly novel delves into the unknowable mysteries of the human mind. Translated from the Japanese by E. Dale Saunders.

The Puppet Boy of Warsaw
The Puppet Boy of Warsaw

Author: Eva Weaver

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Published: 2013-04-11

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0297868292

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The story of Mika, a Jewish boy, who becomes a puppeteer in the Warsaw ghetto - a stunning debut for fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, The Boy with the Striped Pyjamas and Schindler's List I was twelve when the coat was made. Nathan, our tailor and dear friend, cut it for Grandfather in the first week of March 1938. It was the last week of freedom for Warsaw and for us... Even in the most difficult of lives, there is hope. And sometimes that hope comes in the form of a small boy, armed with a troupe of puppets - a prince, a girl, a fool, a crocodile with half-painted teeth.... When Mika's grandfather dies in the Warsaw ghetto, he inherits not only his great coat, but its treasure trove of secrets. In one remote pocket, he finds a papier mache head, a scrap of cloth...the prince. And what better way to cheer the cousin who has lost her father, the little boy who his ill, the neighbours living in one cramped room, than a puppet show? Soon the whole ghetto is talking about the puppet boy - until the day when Mika is stopped by a German officer and is forced into a secret life... This is a story about survival. It is an epic journey, spanning continents and generations, from Warsaw to the gulags of Siberia, and two lives that intertwine amid the chaos of war. Because even in wartime, there is hope...

Beasts Head for Home
Beasts Head for Home

Author: Kōbō Abe

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2017-05-23

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0231544669

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In the aftermath of World War II, Kuki Kyūzō, a Japanese youth raised in the puppet state of Manchuria, struggles to return home to Japan. What follows is a wild journey involving drugs, smuggling, chases, and capture. Kyūzō finally makes his way to the waters off Japan but finds himself unable to disembark. His nation remains inaccessible to him, and now he questions its very existence. Beasts Head for Home is an acute novel of identity, belonging, and the vagaries of human behavior from an exceptional modern Japanese author.

The Frontier Within
The Frontier Within

Author: Kōbō Abe

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2013-06-25

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 0231535090

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Abe Kobo (1924–1993) was one of Japan's greatest postwar writers, widely recognized for his imaginative science fiction and plays of the absurd. However, he also wrote theoretical criticism for which he is lesser known, merging literary, historical, and philosophical perspectives into keen reflections on the nature of creativity, the evolution of the human species, and an impressive range of other subjects. Abe Kobo tackled contemporary social issues and literary theory with the depth and facility of a visionary thinker. Featuring twelve essays from his prolific career—including "Poetry and Poets (Consciousness and the Unconscious)," written in 1944, and "The Frontier Within, Part II," written in 1969—this anthology introduces English-speaking readers to Abe Kobo as critic and intellectual for the first time. Demonstrating the importance of his theoretical work to a broader understanding of his fiction—and a richer portrait of Japan's postwar imagination—Richard F. Calichman provides an incisive introduction to Abe Kobo's achievements and situates his essays historically and intellectually.