Koubou Abe

Japanese writer, playwright, photographer and inventor. Abe has been often compared to Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia for his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society and his modernist sensibilities. Abe was born in Kita, Tokyo and grew up in Mukden (now Shenyang) in Manchuria. His father was a physician who taught at a local medical college. Abe returned to Japan in 1941 and began studies at Tokyo Imperial University in 1943. He graduated in 1948 with a medical degree, on the condition that he would not practice. He was first published as a poet in 1947 with Mumei-shishuu ("Poems of an Unknown Poet") and as a novelist the following year with Owarishi michi no shirube ni ("The Road Sign at the End of the Street"), which established his reputation. Though he did much work as an avant-garde novelist and playwright, it was not until the publication of The Woman in the Dunes in 1962 that he won widespread international acclaim.

(Source: Wikipedia)