WRITER

Kōbō Abe

1924 - 1993

Photo of Kōbō Abe

Icon of person Kōbō Abe

Kōbō Abe (安部 公房, Abe Kōbō), pen name of Kimifusa Abe (安部 公房, Abe Kimifusa, March 7, 1924 – January 22, 1993), was a Japanese writer, playwright, musician, photographer, and inventor. He is best known for his 1962 novel The Woman in the Dunes that was made into an award-winning film by Hiroshi Teshigahara in 1964. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Kōbō Abe has received more than 574,858 page views. His biography is available in 55 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 51 in 2019). Kōbō Abe is the 643rd most popular writer (up from 730th in 2019), the 91st most popular biography from Japan (up from 110th in 2019) and the 12th most popular Japanese Writer.

Kōbō Abe is most famous for his novel "The Woman in the Dunes" which is about a man who becomes trapped in a sandpit with a woman and must dig away at the sand to survive.

Memorability Metrics

  • 570k

    Page Views (PV)

  • 65.02

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 55

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 5.42

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 4.11

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Ting ling mei shuo
2016
Người đàn bà trong cồn cát
2010
Mihitsu no koi
1971
Beasts head for home
Identity (Psychology)
Following his nation's defeat in the Pacific War, Kuki Kyuzo, a Japanese youth, struggles to return home to Japan from Manchuria. What follows is a wild journey involving drugs, smuggling, chases, and capture. Kyuzo finally makes his way back to 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 Japanese modern author.
2017
Hwangya ŭi iri =
1998
The ruined map
Fiction
In this gripping novel by the author of The Woman in the Dunes, an alluring woman hires a private eye to track down her missing husband. The detective's investigation takes him deep into Tokyo's sleazy underworld, with its back-alley nude bars, savage gangs, and relentless violence. Before long, he is facing both outward danger and inward turmoil as he comes to identify with the man he is hunting.
19933 / 5

Page views of Kōbō Abes by language

Over the past year Kōbō Abe has had the most page views in the with 192,591 views, followed by English (76,378), and Russian (30,417). In terms of yearly growth of page views the top 3 wikpedia editions are Mingrelian (237.32%), Icelandic (136.75%), and Uzbek (105.90%)

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Kōbō Abe ranks 643 out of 7,302. Before him are Clarice Lispector, Daphne du Maurier, William Makepeace Thackeray, Walther von der Vogelweide, Ivan Franko, and Irène Némirovsky. After him are Alexander Pope, Michael Crichton, Muriel Spark, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Juana Inés de la Cruz, and Harper Lee.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1924, Kōbō Abe ranks 31. Before him are Willard Boyle, Roger Guillemin, Robert Solow, James Baldwin, Mário Soares, and Sidney Lumet. After him are Black Dahlia, Lee Marvin, Henry Mancini, Truman Capote, Lys Assia, and Amílcar Cabral. Among people deceased in 1993, Kōbō Abe ranks 21. Before him are André the Giant, Bobby Moore, Hans Jonas, Albert Sabin, Inge Lehmann, and Polykarp Kusch. After him are Bill Bixby, Wolfgang Paul, Brandon Lee, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Dizzy Gillespie, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

Others Born in 1924

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Others Deceased in 1993

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In Japan

Among people born in Japan, Kōbō Abe ranks 91 out of 6,245. Before him are Himiko (175), Shin'ichirō Tomonaga (1906), Sakamoto Ryōma (1836), Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952), Joe Hisaishi (1950), and Tadamichi Kuribayashi (1891). After him are Kūkai (774), Emperor Itoku (-553), Prince Shōtoku (574), Benkei (1155), Empress Go-Sakuramachi (1740), and Naoto Kan (1946).

Others born in Japan

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Among WRITERS In Japan

Among writers born in Japan, Kōbō Abe ranks 12. Before him are Osamu Dazai (1909), Murasaki Shikibu (973), Kenzaburō Ōe (1935), Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1892), Natsume Sōseki (1867), and Kazuo Ishiguro (1954). After him are Sugawara no Michizane (845), Sei Shōnagon (966), Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (1886), Masaru Emoto (1943), Zeami Motokiyo (1363), and Kobayashi Issa (1763).

Japanese born Writers

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