SOURCE: Mitsutani, Margaret. “Abe Kōbō's Early Short Fiction.” Japan Quarterly 38, no. 3 (July-September 1991): 347-49.

In the following essay, Mitsutani applauds the broad range of Abe's stories in Beyond the Curve, maintaining that it gives readers “the opportunity for a fresh perspective on one of the most familiar of modern Japanese writers.”

The name of Abe Kōbō has been familiar to English readers for over 25 years now, ever since E. Dale Saunders's translation of Woman in the Dunes (1962; tr. 1964)—probably still Abe's best-known novel in the English-speaking world—appeared in 1964, the same year in which Teshigahara Hiroshi's haunting monochrome film based on it received international acclaim. With a total of eight full-length novels, two plays, and a smattering of short fiction tucked away in anthologies and magazines currently available in English translation, Abe has achieved a firm position in the Western canon of modern Japanese literature as...