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Zusatztext "A fascinating book.... The world of Kobo Abe is one in which intellectual concepts have the emotional impact and motivating power of psychotic compulsions."– Newsweek "A major novel... Since The Woman in the Dunes , Kobo Abe's stock as a novelist has been very high. The Face of Another raises it still more."– The Christian Science Monitor "Probes the edges of a waking nightmare....The central, shaping metaphor of face and facelessness is brilliant, and Abe's relentless pursuit of its every implication is powerful."– The Saturday Review Informationen zum Autor Kobo Abe was born in Tokyo in 1924, grew up in Manchuria, and returned to Japan in his early twenties. In 1948 he received a medical degree from Tokyo Imperial University, but he never practiced medicine. Before his death in 1993, Abe was considered his country's foremost living novelist, and was also widely known as a dramatist. His novels have earned many literary awards and prizes, and have all been best sellers in Japan. They include The Woman in the Dunes , Kangaroo Notebook , The Ark Sakura , The Face of Another , The Box Man , and The Ruined Map. Klappentext Like an elegantly chilling postscript to The Metamorphosis , this classic of postwar Japanese literature describes a bizarre physical transformation that exposes the duplicities of an entire world. The narrator is a scientist hideously deformed in a laboratory accident-a man who has lost his face and, with it, his connection to other people. Even his wife is now repulsed by him. His only entry back into the world is to create a mask so perfect as to be undetectable. But soon he finds that such a mask is more than a disguise: it is an alternate self-a self that is capable of anything. A remorseless meditation on nature, identity and the social contract, The Face of Another is an intellectual horror story of the highest order. Leseprobe AT LAST you have come, threading your way through the endless passages of the maze. With the map you got from him, you have finally found your way to my hideaway--the first room at the top of the creaking, harmonium-pedal stairs. You've mounted with somewhat shaky steps. You hold your breath and knock. Why is there no answer? Instead, only a young girl comes running like a kitten. She is supposed to open the door for you. You ask if there isn't a message; the girl doesn't answer but smiles and runs away. You peep in, looking for him. But he isn't there, not a trace is left; and an odor of ruin floats in the air. A dead room. Expressionless walls look back at you; you shudder. As you are about to go, though with a feeling of guilt, the three notebooks on the table, together with the letter, catch your eye, and you realize that you too are trapped at last. No matter how loathesome the thoughts that well up in you, you cannot resist the temptation. You have torn open the envelope with trembling hands, and now you are beginning to read the letter. You are probably humiliated and angry. But I should like you to fix your eyes on the paper, though you don't want to, and go on reading. I want so desperately for you to come safely through this moment and make a step toward me. Have I lost to him or has he lost to me? Either way, my masked play is over. I have murdered him, and I proclaim myself the criminal. I shall confess everything, entirely. Whether you act out of generosity or selfishness, I want you to go on reading. He who has the right to sit in judgment also has the obligation to listen to the defendant's statement. You may be suspected, of course, of false complicity if you simply abandon me as I kneel here. Well, sit down; relax. If the air in the room is bad, open the window at once. A teapot and cups are in the kitchen if you want them. As soon as yo...
