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, 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 graduated from the Japanese Institute of the Moving Image around 1988. 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.

His family ran a bakery. There was a bookstore directly across the street from his family’s home, and he cites Bruce Lee’s *Weapons of the Soul* as a book he bought during his elementary school years [3]. After getting his hands on *Weapons of the Soul*, Abe tried to recreate the techniques in his notebook to develop his own martial art. However, the result was simply a verbatim copy of the book. This experience would later influence the use of quotations and other references in Abe’s works [3]. Furthermore, Abe later began the opening of his debut novel, *American Night*, with a passage inspired by Lee [4].

In fact, there was also a movie theater next to the bookstore [3]. Since he preferred movies to novels from childhood, his father—who was a movie enthusiast—often took him there [3].

In junior high school, he discovered David Bowie through *Christiane F.* and was influenced by the art and novels Bowie introduced him to [3]. Around the same time, he watched *Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence* [3]. After hearing rumors that the film was influenced by Yukio Mishima’s *Forbidden Colors*, he listened to Ryuichi Sakamoto’s *Forbidden Colours* shortly afterward and decided to read *Forbidden Colors* [3]. For a school book report, he chose *Afternoon Towing* [3]. However, he has stated that he had not yet “discovered” novels at that time, and his interest in them did not begin until his days at film school [3]. *An Afternoon Party at the Duchess’s Mansion* contains a parody of *Forbidden Colors* [3].

He dropped out of Yamagata Prefectural Tateoka High School during his second year and moved to Tokyo, enrolling in the Japan Film School with the goal of becoming a film director.

During his time at film school, 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,” prompting him to decide to read novels [3].

He discovered Kenzaburo Oe after a friend recommended him and was deeply influenced by his work [3]. The first work he read was the short story collection *Agui, the Monster of the Sky*, and he was so deeply moved by the story “Dissatisfaction” within it that it completely transformed his perception of literary fiction [3]. Among his favorite works, he cites *The Flood Reaches My Soul* [3]. In addition to Oe, he read Richard Bach, Jean Genet, Burroughs, William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Greg Bear, George Alec Effinger, Rudy Lacker, Heinlein, and Kobo Abe, among others [3].

As for Burroughs, he was influenced by *Cities of the Red Knight* and wrote a work based on it, which he submitted to the Gunzo New Writers’ Award, but it did not even make it past the first round of judging [3].

Along with Oe, he was also influenced by Philip K. Dick [3]. This was reportedly due to Dick’s approach of turning the multifaceted structure of reality into narrative [3].

He was also greatly influenced by Alfred Bester’s *Tiger! Tiger!* [3]. *Sinsemia* contains an homage to *Tiger! Tiger!* [3].

He was also significantly influenced by literary criticism, with Shigehiko Hasumi being his greatest influence; through him, he was also influenced by Kojin Karatani, Kyojin Onishi, and Akio Goto [3].

He described Kyojin Onishi’s *Sacred Comedy* and Akio Goto’s *Pincer Movement* as perfect novels [3].

He began writing in a class on screenwriting; later, he continued writing even without assignments and would show his work to friends [3].

The first full-length screenplay he wrote was a work of metafiction; in his own words, it was a mix of Tarkovsky’s *Stalker*, Kubrick’s *A Clockwork Orange*, and Fellini’s *8½* [3]. However, his instructor’s evaluation was that he was “far too overconfident” [3].

He graduated in 1990 and, after working as an assistant director and then as a part-time worker, began his career as a writer.

He began writing novels around the age of 21 and submitted one work every year [3].

Around the age of 24, he read Marcel Proust’s *In Search of Lost Time* [3].

In 1994, he made his literary debut by winning the 37th Gunzo New Writers’ Literary Award in the fiction category for *American Night* (original title: *The Night of the Living Dead*) [4]. He submitted his work to the Gunzo New Writers’ Literary Award because Akio Goto and Yukito Kojima were members of the selection committee. The novel features a narrative structure in which the narrator and the protagonist—who are the same person—split apart, resulting in constant self-referentiality within the text; the opening of the work parodies Yukito Kojima’s critical essay *Inquiry I*. It was also nominated for the 111th Akutagawa Prize that same year and for the 8th Yukio Mishima Prize the following year.

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 Mujou no Sekai (無情の世界 This Cruel World)
• 2001 Nipponia Nippon (ニッポニアニッポン Nipponia Nippon)
• 2003 Shinsemia (シンセミア Sinsemilla)
• 2005 Gurando Finare (グランド・フィナーレ Grand Finale)
• 2006 Purasutikku Souru (プラスティック・ソウル Plastic Soul)
• 2006 Misuteriasu Settingu (ミステリアス・セッティング Mysterious Setting)
• 2010 Pisutoruzu (ピストルズ Pistols)
• 2012 Kuesa to Jusanbanme no Hashira (クエーサーと13番目の柱)
• 2013 Shikaku (□ しかく) Little More
• 2013 Derakkusu Edishon (Deluxe Edition)
• 2014 Kyaputen Sandaboruto (キャプテンサンダーボルト Captain Thunderbolt). with Kotaro Isaka
• 2019 Oganizumu (オーガニズム Orga（ni）sm)
• 2021 Burakku Chenba Myujikku (ブラック・チェンバー・ミュージック Black Chamber Music)
• 2022 Arutimetto Edishon [Ultimate Edition]

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)