Japan Unit Exam

• What story did Kobe Abe write

  The Magic Chalk
• When was he born

  March 3, 1924
• When did he die?

  January 22, 1993
• How old was he when he died?

  68 years old
• Where was he born

  Tokyo
• Where did he spend his childhood?

  Manchurian city of Mukden, it was occupied by Japanese armies
• When was Manchurian city occupied by Japanese armies

  1931-1935
• What was he alienated from

  nationalistic materialistic homeland
• What was his original name?

  Kimfusa
• Why did he change his name to Kobo?


  he wanted his name to sound more Chinese
• What was he rejoiced about

  Japan was about to be defeated
• When did he get his medical degree

  Tokyo University
• When did he get his medical degree?

  1948
• Who else was in the medical field

  his father
• What career did he persue

  literary career by being a novelist and playwright
• What did his work blend together

  detailed realism and grotesque fantasy
• Who was his work compared to

  Franz Kafka, Eugene Ionesco & Samuel Beckett
• What was there genre

  detective/ science fiction genre
• What did the themes consist of

  rootlessness, alienation, and fragility of human identity
• Quote


  'the new westernized society of self can only exist by devouring the old"
• What was his best known novel?

  the Woman in the Dunes
• Who directed The Woman in the Dunes

  Teshigahara
• What novel was turned into a movie?

  The Woman in the Dunes
• What award did "The Woman in the Dunes" get?

  Special jury prize @ Cannes Film Festival
• What was "the woman in the Dunes" about?

  a man imprisoned in a house in the bottom of a sandpit, primitive people who live there use him as a new husband and make him shovel daily which kept the weird community alive.
• What was he awarded

  - Post literature Prize

  - Akutagawa Prize

  - 2 awards for drama (The Kishida and Kanizaki Prizes)
• Who published all his novels?

  Knopf
• The Woman in the Dunes


  1964
• The Face of Another


  1966
• The Ruined Map


  1969
• Inter Ice Age Four


  1970
• The Box Man


  1975
• Secret Rendezvous


  1979
• The Ark Sakura


  1988
• The Kangaroo Notebook


  1996
• Where are her short stories collected in


  Beyond the Curve (Kodansha International 1991)
• What was the play "Friends" based on


  Intruders (Grove 1969)
• The Man Who Turned into a Stick


  (Tokyo uni. press 1975)
• Who is the main character


  Argon
• What is argons job?

  poor artist