D C 1 ABE KŌBŌ (1924–1993) Japanese novelist, playwright, short story writer Abe Kōbō is a well- known writer in both Japan and the wider world. Abe’s works, particularly The WOMAN IN THE DUNES (Suna na Onna, 1962), are famous for their absurd and fantastic elements. This absurdity often causes critics to equate Abe with authors such as FRANZ KAFKA, ALBERT CAMUS, Samuel Beckett, and Eugene Ionesco, although an equally appropriate comparison might also be made to Kurt Vonnegut, inasmuch as a number of Abe’s works contain an idiosyncratic mix of straight narrative, sci- ence fiction, and absurdity. To characterize Abe’s works as “absurd” implies a certain level of cultural collusion in Abe’s writing that is not entirely accurate. Recognizing that the absurdists were writing mainly in the 1950s, the reader would be forgiven in assuming that Abe merely wrote Japanese versions of Western novels (which enjoyed much pop- ularity in postwar Japan). However, this omits Abe’s own feelings on contemporary life. It is important to realize the Japanese national context of postwar eco- nomic depression and decline of central authority in which his novels were written. That is, although Abe partially shares the “existentialist” position of writers such as Camus and JEAN-PAUL SARTRE (in which modern man is without roots and without recourse to absolute truths and morals), Abe’s form of absurdity is grounded in Japanese cultural experience and his own early life. Abe was born Abe Kimifusa (“Kōbō” is a bastardized form of the name) in Tokyo on March 7, 1924. His father, a doctor with the Imperial Medical College of Manchuria, raised Abe in Manchuria, then a Japanese occupied state known as Manchukuo. However, he was educated primarily in Japan, first at an elite high school (from 1941) and then at Tokyo Imperial Uni- versity (from 1943), where he studied medicine. Abe’s dual “nationality” led him to feel like an outsider with regard both to Japan and Manchukuo, and his experi- ences differed quite significantly from those of many of his contemporaries. His upbringing was firmly rooted not only in Japan and Japanese culture but also in a particular region of Japan, compelling Abe to assimilate a number of disparate experiences. This sense of dislocation had a major effect on his works and perhaps explains the sense of isolation—and often desolation—within them, as well as the openness Abe exhibited toward new genres and methods of writing. Despite studying medicine, Abe never practiced as a doctor (stories exist that he was awarded the degree solely on the condition that he would not practice medicine), and soon after the war he began writing novels and short stories. In fact, Abe’s writing seems to stem directly from the impact that World War II had on Japanese life. After the war, Manchuria reverted to Chinese rule, and the United States occupied Japan. Such radical upheavals exacerbated his already present sense of homelessness even further—especially when coupled with the death of his father in 1946. Abe’s first novel was published only two years later. The Signpost at the End of the Road (Owarishi Michi no Shirube Ni, A