Kobo Abe (安部公房 Abe Kōbō, pseudonym of Kimifusa Abe (Abe Kimifusa, born March 7, 1924 - January 22, 1993) was a Japanese writer.

He was born in Tokyo, grew up in Manchuria and graduated in 1948 with a medical degree from Tokyo Imperial University on the condition that he wouldn't practice. He published his first novel in 1948 and worked as an avant-garde novelist and playwright, but it wasn't until he published The Woman in the Dunes in 1962 that he won widespread international acclaim.

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

Abe's surreal and often nightmarish explorations of the individual in contemporary society earned him comparisons to Kafka and his influence extended well beyond Japan, particularly with the success of Woman in the Dunes at the Cannes Film Festival.

List of books available in English

• Woman in the Dunes
• Inter Ice Age 4
• The Face of Another
• The Ruined Map
• The Man Who Turned Into a Stick
• The Box Man
• Kangaroo Notebook
• The Ark Sakura
• Secret Rendezvous
• Beyond the Curve (short stories)
• Three Plays by Kobo Abe
• Friends (play)

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