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  • Published: 2 February 2021
  • ISBN: 9780241454596
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 160
  • RRP: $22.99

The Box Man




Kobo Abe's existential and entertaining masterpiece

'This is the record of a box man'

The streets of Tokyo have been seeing a strange phenomenon recently - people who have decided to live their lives in a box on the street. Behind their cut-out eyeholes, they sit and watch from behind their four cardboard walls. Our nameless narrator, at first repulsed by the box men, slowly becomes drawn in to the anonymity and voyeuristic life inside a box. As his identity slowly slips away and he becomes obsessed with watching an intriguing young nurse, we too become privy to the schizophrenic and seductive unreality of a box man's life.

  • Published: 2 February 2021
  • ISBN: 9780241454596
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 160
  • RRP: $22.99

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Praise for The Box Man

A stunning addition to the literature of eccentricity

The New York Times

A spellbinder from beginning to end, an edgy masterpiece

Chicago Sun-Times

Like Kafka, Abe's work reveals an astonishing ability to create dreamlike events

Chicago Tribune