The Box Man

A man abandons his identity, his name and his home, to live inside a large cardboard box that he wears over his head, and wanders the streets of Tokyo as a "box man". The narrative, which is told through notebooks, photographs and fragments, shifts among the box man's perspective, those of a doctor and a mysterious woman who may be a nurse, and observers. Kōbō Abe builds a story about anonymity, voyeurism and the desire to escape from social roles, in a style that mixes the surreal with the clinical.

Readers who like experimental fiction and Abe's other novels, such as The Woman in the Dunes, will find a strange and thought-provoking book. It suits those interested in modern urban alienation and in unusual narrative forms.

Deep, inward-looking, open-ended and thought-provoking; a demanding read.

Best for readers like The Literary Connoisseur. Which reader are you?