Kazushige Abe

The native form of this personal name is Abe Kazushige. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

Kazushige Abe
阿部 和重
Born	(1968-09-23) 23 September 1968 Higashine City, Yamagata Prefecture
Occupation	Writer
Spouse	Mieko Kawakami
Awards	Gunzo Prize for New Writers Noma Literary New Face Prize Sei Ito Literature Prize Mainichi Publishing Culture Award Akutagawa Prize Tanizaki Prize

Kazushige Abe (阿部 和重, Abe Kazushige; born 23 September 1968) is a Japanese novelist and film critic. He was born in Higashine City, Yamagata Prefecture. His wife is Mieko Kawakami, who is also a novelist.

Abe's family ran a bakery. There was a bookstore directly across the street from his family’s home, where during elementary school he discovered a copy of Bruce Lee's writings on martial arts. Abe attempted to recreate Lee's fighting techniques and develop his own martial art, but succeeded only in making a verbatim copy of Lee's book. However, this experience would later influence Abe's use of quotations and other references in his own works. Next to the bookstore was a movie theater, and since he initally preferred movies to novels, his father—who was also a film enthusiast—often took him there.

Abe dropped out of Yamagata Prefectural Tateoka High School during his second year and moved to Tokyo, enrolling in the Japanese Institute of the Moving Image with the goal of becoming a film director. During his time at the Institute, Nagaharu Yodogawa, who served as a special lecturer, told him, “If you’re going to study film, you should also study forms of expression other than film,” and encouraged him to start reading novels. Abe graduated from film school in 1990. After working as an assistant director, he changed his focus to writing, making his debut in 1994 with American Night, for which he won the Gunzo New Writers’ Award.

He garnered attention in 1997 with Individual Projection. He has published numerous works that are highly conscious of narrative form, while weaving in contemporary topics such as terrorism, the Internet, and lolicon. In 2004, he won the Seiji Ito Literary Award and the Mainichi Publishing Culture Award for Sinsemia, and in 2005, he won the Akutagawa Prize for "Grand Finale." Several of his works, including Sinsemia, share a common setting centered on “Kamimachi”; in interviews, he has spoken of his vision for the “Kamimachi Saga,” which concluded with Orga(ni)sm.

Works

[Titles in brackets indicate a work that has yet to be translated into English]

• 1994 アメリカの夜 (Amerika no Yoru) [American Night]
• 1995 ABC戦争 (ABC Sensou) [The ABC Wars]
• 1997 インディヴィジュアル・プロジェクション (Indivijuaru Purojekushon) [Individual Projection]
• 1997 公爵婦人邸の午後のパーティー (Koushakufujin-tei no Gogo no Paatii) [The Evening Party at the Princess's House]
• 1999 無情の世界 (Mujou no Sekai) [This Cruel World]
• 2001 ニッポニアニッポン Nipponia Nippon
• 2003 シンセミア (Shinsemia) [Sinsemilla]
• 2005 グランド・フィナーレ (Gurando Finare) [Grand Finale]
• 2006 プラスティック・ソウル (Purasutikku Souru) [Plastic Soul]
• 2006 ミステリアス・セッティング (Misuteriasu Settingu) Mysterious Setting
• 2010 ピストルズ (Pisutoruzu) [Pistols]
• 2011 "Ride on Time"
• 2012 クエーサーと13番目の柱 (Kuesa to Jusanbanme no Hashira)
• 2013 □ しかく (Shikaku) [Little More]
• 2013 Derakkusu Edishon (Deluxe Edition)
• 2014 キャプテンサンダーボルト (Kyaputen Sandaboruto) [Captain Thunderbolt] with Kotaro Isaka
• 2019 オーガニズム (Oganizumu) [Orga(ni)sm]
• 2021 ブラック・チェンバー・ミュージック (Burakku Chenba Myujikku) [Black Chamber Music]
• 2022 Arutimetto Edishon [Ultimate Edition]
• ???? 馬小屋の乙女 "The Maiden in the Manger"

Awards

• 1994 – 37th Gunzo Prize for New Writers: Amerika no Yoru
• 1999 – 21st Noma Literary New Face Prize: Mujo no sekai
• 2004 – 15th Sei Ito Literature Prize: Shinsemia
• 2004 – 58th Mainichi Publishing Culture Award: Shinsemia
• 2005 – 132nd Akutagawa Prize: Gurando Finare
• 2010 – 46th Tanizaki Prize: Pisutoruzu

See also

• Japanese literature
• List of Japanese authors

External links

• Synopsis of Sinsemillas (Shinsemia) at JLPP (Japanese Literature Publishing Project) (in English)
• http://no-sword.jp/blog/2005/02/grand-finale-by-abe-kazushige.html (in English)
• Abe's author page on Pushkin Press