Fake Fish: the Theater of Kobo Abe

This is the first study of an important part of Japanese author Kobo Abe’s life, his work in the theater. Professor Nancy Shields attended all of the rehearsals & witnessed Abe’s plays as they evolved under his guidance. She also accompanied his troupe on its American tour. In this volume she describes both the process & the art of a man who was no less gifted as a man of the theater than as a novelist. Abe directed his own plays because he felt that “writing a play & staging it were almost the same thing.” The book is illustrated with over 100 black-&-white photos of Abe & the rehearsals & performances of his plays, & has an illuminating foreword by Donald Keene, an authority on Japanese culture.