Abe Kōbō

At breakfast one morning, the narrator of Kangaroo Notebook discovers to his horror that what appear to be radish sprouts are growing out of his shins. Thus begins Kobo Abe's strange and wonderful last novel, completed not long before his death in 1993, and set in a skewed version of modern urban Japan. Funny and terrifying by turns, it is the story of an ordinary man in the grip of bizarre and thoroughly extraordinary forces - a self-propelled hospital bed that takes him literally to the edge of hell, doctors eager to cure the wrong ailments, mysterious windstorms, a nurse devoted to taking blood (her monthly quota is about three quarts), infant ghosts, and an American known as Master Hammer Killer who is making a film called Fatal Accidents.

Mole has converted a huge underground quarry into an "ark" capable of surviving the coming nuclear holocaust and is now in search of his crew. He falls victim, however, to the wiles of a con-man-cum-insect-dealer. In the surreal drama that ensues, the ark is invaded by a gang of youths and a sinister group of elderly people called the Broom Brigade, lead by Mole's odious father, while Mole becomes trapped in the ark's central piece of equipment, a giant toilet powerful enough to flush almost anything, including chopped-up humans, out to sea--Publisher's description.

The author combines wildly imaginative fantasies and naturalistic prose to create narratives reminiscent of the work of Kafka and Beckett.

In near-future Japan threatened by the melting of the polar icecaps, Professor Katsumi develops a computer that can predict human behavior. Unfortunately for the Professor, the computer predicts that he will oppose a new government genetics experiment.

A young entomologist, trapped in a sandpit with an attractive widow, finds he is a prisoner.

"Abe Kobo tackled contemporary social issues and literary theory with the depth and facility of a visionary thinker." -- Jacket cove

"Set in Manchuria in the aftermath of the Asian Pacific War. The central character is Kuki Kyūzō, whose settler parents relocated from Japan to the Manchurian puppet-state as the Japanese empire expanded. Kyūzō's father, a factory technician, dies shortly after he is born. In the course of Japan's defeat and the Soviet Union's occupation of Manchuria, Kyūzō's mother is seriously wounded, forcing him to remain behind with her rather than evacuate with the other Japanese citizens. Her subsequent death leaves Kyūzō alone in the abandoned Japanese settlement, and he is employed as a houseboy by Alexandrov, an officer in the Soviet army. Approximately two years after the end of hostilities, Kyūzō decides to return to Japan. Providing money, a train ticket, and official travel documents, Alexandrov bids Kyūzō farewell. On the train Kyūzō meets Kō, who appears to be a fellow Japanese, much to Kyūzō's relief. The train is attacked, but Kyūzō and Kō manage to escape, fleeing by foot across the harsh Manchurian plains. Kyūzō gradually comes to realize that Kō is in possession of stolen heroin and is being pursued by the Chinese Communists, who are battling the Nationalist forces for control of the mainland. Finally arriving at a city, Kyūzō is betrayed by Kō, who beats him and steals his identity papers and travel documents. Utterly destitute, Kyūzō makes his way to a Japanese repatriation center. The difficulty is that Kyūzō lacks any documents to prove that he is Japanese. Exposure to the elements has left him deeply sunburned, which further casts doubt on his Japanese identity. He wanders the city and meets another Japanese named Okura, who takes an unusual interest in Kyūzō's relationship with Kō"--

Presents the narrator's observations on the world after he gives up his home to live in a cardboard box, which he wears over his head.

Janice Lewis, seventeen, and beginning a university course in Sydney, finds a friend in Hisako, a Japanese fellow student. However, when Hisako meets Ben Lewis, Janice’s dad, old hatreds bubble to the surface. What is the secret Ben has carried since the end of the Second World War—a secret which has the potential to destroy more than one family relationship? Told against the historical background of the Cowra Breakout in 1944, Tomodachi is an exciting, fast-moving Australian historical novel for older teens. Note: This book is a completely revised, rewritten and corrected version of Yesterday's Enemy: Tomadachi first published in 1994.