Beasts Head for Home

Abe Kobo (1924-1993) was one of Japan's greatest postwar writers, widely recognized for his imaginative fiction and plays of the absurd. Richard F. Calichman is professor of Japanese studies at the City College of New York, CUNY. He is also the translator and editor of The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kobo (Columbia, 2013).

Abe Kobo is one of the most respected postwar Japanese fiction writers and internationally recognized for the unique style, philosophical depth, and experimental quality of his fiction. Although Beasts Head for Home is not one of Abe's most well-known works, readers will be eager to see how he wrote about an important historical moment from an essentially realist perspective. An excellent translation of a novel in need of an English-language version. -- Travis Workman, author of Imperial Genus: The Formation and Limits of the Human in Modern Korea and Japan The earliest work by one of Japan's foremost writers to appear in English, Beasts Head for Home tells the story of a young Japanese man who undertakes a harrowing journey in an attempt to reach Japan after the collapse of the Japanese Empire. The story is particularly affecting to read in this historical moment with so much forced migration all over the world. Calichman's translation is flawless. -- J. Keith Vincent, translator of Devils in Daylight by Junichiro Tanizaki Calichman's superb translation of Abe's semiautobiographical novel brings us a Kafkaesque world of displacement where settlers of Manchuria undergo the loss of home, identity, and belonging after the collapse of the Japanese empire. Beasts Head for Home is a haunting and gripping story and an indispensable read for anyone interested in postcolonial studies, settler colonial studies, and the history of empire. -- Katsuya Hirano, author of The Politics of Dialogic Imagination: Power and Popular Culture in Early Modern Japan With subtle echoes of a samurai classic, Abe's autobiographical novel is a memorable portrait of statelessness, exile, and wandering. Kirkus Reviews This novel is an excellent entry point into Abe's writing, with much of his signature tone and style. He is a master of controlling the reader's emotional investment while crafting an increasingly suffocating atmosphere of dread, resulting in a devastating reading experience. Publishers Weekly (starred review)

• Introduction Beasts Head for Home