His title is romanized when Kobo Abe around Vintage International's English-language editions of his book, when Columbia University Press's edition of Three Plays by Kōbō Abe romanizes his title when Kōbō Abe.

Biography
Abe was natural within Kita, Tokyo, grew up inside so Mukden, (today Shen-yang) in Manchuria. His father was a doctor that taught at the medical college. Abe went back to Japan in 1941 and began studies at Tokyo Imperial University in 1943. He graduated inside 1948 with a medical degree on the trouble that he wouldn't practice. He was foremost published as a poet by owning Mumei Shishu ("Poems of an unknown poet") within 1947. A next month he published his number 1 novel, Owarishi michi there is no shirube ni (“a Road Sign at the Prevent of the Street”) which established his reputation. He worked as an avant-garde novelist and dramatist, however it wasn't until he published A Woman inside the Sand dune in 1962 that he won widespread international plaudit.

In the 1960s, he collaborated with Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara in adapting to film The Pitfall, Woman in the Dunes, The Face of A second & A Ruined Map.

Around 1973 he founded an acting studio within Tokyo, in which he trained performing artist in his innovative performance methods & directed plays.

Abe's surreal & typically bloodcurdling explorations of the single within contemporary society earned him comparisons to Kafka and his influence extended well beyond Japan, particularly using a profits of Woman in the Dunes at the Cannes Film Festival.

Summaries of selected works
The Ruined Map (1964)
Sequentially to find the timid woman's missing hubby, the private investigator abandons his own identity.

The Ark Sakura (1984)
Fearing at hand nuclear holocaust, an obese survivalist named "Mole" builds a straggling, technologically easily-equipped shelter away from an abandoned quarry. Challenges mount when a insect salesman & pair of shills that he has recruited as crewman begin making demands & an older brigade of street-sweepers threatens invasion.

Kangaroo Notebook (1991)
Fallowing shopping for professional assistance for the patch of radish sprouts found growing in his legs, an professional supply worker is taken in the journeying across various surreal venue by the hospital bed by using the mind of its have.

List of books available in English
Inter Ice Age 4　(第四間氷期) "Daiyon kampyōki" 1959 Woman in the Dunes　(砂の女) "Suna no onna" 1962 The Face of Another　(他人の顔)"Tanin no kao" 1964 The Ruined Map　(燃え尽きた地図) "Moetsukita chizu" 1967 Friends (play)　(友達) "Tomodachi" 1967 the Human World health organization Turned Into a Stick　(棒になった男) A Pack Human　(箱男) "Hako otoko" 1973 Kangaroo Notebook　(カンガルー・ノート) Secret Rendezvous　(密会) "Mikkai" 1977 A Ark Sakura　(方舟さくら丸) "Hakobune Sakura-maru" 1984 Beyond a Curve (short stories) 1990 3 Plays by Kobo Abe

Understand likewise: Japanese literature, List of Japanese authors; science fiction: authors - novels - short stories - television shows