The narrator is a scientist hideously deformed in a laboratory accident - a man who has lost his face and, with it, connection to other people. Even his wife is now repulsed by him. His only entry back into the world is to create a mask so perfect as to be undetectable. But soon he finds that such mask is more than a disguise: it is an alternate self - a self that is capable of anything. A remorseless meditation on nature, identity, and the social contract, THE FACE OF ANOTHER is an intellectual horror story of the highest order.

The Face of Another (Penguin Modern Classics)

Humor & Entertainment

Abe, Kōbō

Humor

Penguin Classics

This is a fine work from one of Japan's most acclaimed novelists, has also been made into a successful film.

The Woman in the Dunes (Twentieth-Century Classics) (English and Japanese Edition)

Literature & Fiction

Oxford Univ. Pr.

Three plays by one of contemporary Japan's most prominent writers--Involuntary Homicide, The Green Stockings, The Ghost is Here--translated for this volume reveal Kobo Abe's deep love of absurdity in the face of universal concerns.

Three Plays by Kobo Abe (Modern Asian Literature)

Dramas & Plays

Columbia University Press

Three Plays by Kobo Abe

The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kobo (Weatherhead Books on Asia)

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.

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Beasts Head for Home﻿: A Novel (Weatherhead Books on Asia)

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.

Literary

'One of Japan's most venerated writers' David MitchellIn this unnerving fable from one of Japan's greatest novelists, a recluse known as 'Mole' retreats to a vast underground bunker, only to find that strange guests, booby traps and a giant toilet may prove even greater obstacles than nuclear disaster.'As is true of Poe and Kafka, Abe creates an unexpected impulsion. One continues reading, on and on' New Yorker'Abe's depiction of the deadly game of survival is hilarious but at the same time leaves us with a chilling sense of apprehension about the brave new world that awaits us' Los Angeles Times

Ark Sakura

Genre Fiction

Penguin Books, Ltd.

'A spellbinder from beginning to end, an edgy masterpiece' Chicago Sun Times\n'This is the record of a box man'. Anonymous and alone, the box man peeps out of his cut-out eyeholes and watches the world from behind his four cardboard walls. At first repulsed by the strange phenomenon of people who have decided to abandon society and live in boxes on the Tokyo streets, he has found himself drawn into the anonymity and voyeurism of their life. As he becomes obsessed with spying on a young nurse, his identity slips away, in Kobo Abe's eerie, disorienting and seductive masterpiece of unease.\n'Funny, sad and destructive ... an invention with its own crazy pull, it gnaws at the reader ... a stunning addition to the literature of eccentricity' The New York Times

The Box Man (Penguin Modern Classics)

Contemporary

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Abe, Kōbō. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Abe, Kōbō

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Abe, Kōbō. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Face of Another (Penguin Modern Classics)

The Woman in the Dunes (Twentieth-Century Classics) (English and Japanese Edition)

Three Plays by Kobo Abe (Modern Asian Literature)

Three Plays by Kobo Abe

The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kobo (Weatherhead Books on Asia)

The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kobo (Weatherhead Books on Asia)

Beasts Head for Home: A Novel (Weatherhead Books on Asia)

Beasts Head for Home: A Novel (Weatherhead Books on Asia)

Ark Sakura

The Box Man (Penguin Modern Classics)

Books by Abe, Kōbō

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Abe, Kōbō. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Face of Another (Penguin Modern Classics)

The Woman in the Dunes (Twentieth-Century Classics) (English and Japanese Edition)

Three Plays by Kobo Abe (Modern Asian Literature)

Three Plays by Kobo Abe

The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kobo (Weatherhead Books on Asia)

The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kobo (Weatherhead Books on Asia)

Beasts Head for Home﻿: A Novel (Weatherhead Books on Asia)

Beasts Head for Home﻿: A Novel (Weatherhead Books on Asia)

Ark Sakura

The Box Man (Penguin Modern Classics)

Beasts Head for Home: A Novel (Weatherhead Books on Asia)

Beasts Head for Home: A Novel (Weatherhead Books on Asia)