DatabaseScriptwriters Database
Abe Kobo
- Profile
- He was born in Tokyo in 1924. He spent his childhood in Manchuria and witnessed the end of the war there. He graduated from the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Medicine in 1948. He made his literary debut in the same year and won the Akutagawa Prize in 1951. He published his first play in 1953 and became devoted to playwriting. In 1955, he co-wrote a radio adaptation of his novel Chinnyūsha (The Intruder) with Kōji Numata, which was broadcast by Asahi Broadcasting (ABC). While continuing to write for radio, he had his first television script, Maho no Chōku (The Magic Chalk), broadcast by NHK in 1958. Many of his works were adapted for films and television. His script credits include Nippon no Nisshoku (The Eclipse of Japan, 1959, NHK), Rengoku (Purgatory, 1960, Kyushu Asahi Broadcasting [KBC]), Monster (1962, NHK), Mushi wa Shine (Death to the Insects, 1963, Hokkaido Broadcasting [HBC]), Konbanwa 21-seiki (Good Evening, 21st Century, 1964, Tokyo Channel 12 [now TV Tokyo]), and Mokugeki-sha (The Witness, 1964, RKB). Highly acclaimed both domestically and internationally as a novelist, playwright, stage director, and essayist, he was widely regarded as one of the top contenders for the Nobel Prize in Literature; however, he died of acute heart failure in 1993 at the age of 68.
- Masterpieces
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日本の日蝕
煉獄
虫は死ね
目撃者