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The bizarrely erotic and comic adventures of a man searching for his missing wife in a mysteriously vast underground hospital.
Excerpt from Chapter 1, introducing the main character:
Thin at first glance, but muscular. Wears contact lenses for mild nearsightedness in both eyes. Slightly frizzy hair. Inconspicuous scar at left corner of mouth (from a quarrel during student days, although the subject is extremely mild-tempered). Smokes under ten cigarettes daily. Special talent is roller skating. Has worked temporarily as male nude model. Currently employed at Subaru Sporting Goods Store. Director of sales promotion for jump shoes (sporting shoes with special elastic body—bubble Springs—built into soles). Hobby is tinkering with machines. In sixth grade, won a bronze medal in newspaper-sponsored inventor contest….
About the Author: Kobo Abe was born in Tokyo in 1924, grew up in Manchuria, and returned to Japan in his early twenties. In 1948 he received a medical degree from Tokyo Imperial University, but he never practiced medicine. Before his death in 1993, Abe was considered Japan’s foremost living novelist, and was also widely known as a dramatist. His novels have earned many literary awards and prizes, and have all been bestsellers in Japan. They include The Woman in the Dunes, Secret Rendezvous, Kangaroo Notebook, The Ark Sakura, The Face of Another, The Box Man, Inter Ice Age 4, and The Ruined Map.
About the Translator: Juliet Winters Carpenter is a professor of English literature at Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts and one of the foremost translators of Japanese literature working today. Her translations include Kobo Abe’s “Beyond the Curve,” Fumiko Enchi’s “Masks,” Ryotaro Shiba’s “The Last Shogun,” Jun’ichi Watanabe’s “A Lost Paradise,” and Machi Tawara’s “Salad Anniversary.” See Hon Podcast 03: Juliet Winters Carpenter Talks About Translating Japanese Literature.