Kōbō Abe (安部 公房, Abe Kōbō), the pen name of Kimifusa Abe (安部 公房, Abe Kimifusa), was a Japanese writer, playwright, musician, photographer, and inventor. He was born on March 7, 1924, and passed away on January 22, 1993. Abe is best known for his 1962 novel The Woman in the Dunes, which was made into an award-winning film by Hiroshi Teshigahara in 1964. His works have often been compared to Franz Kafka for their modernist sensibilities and surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society.

As the son of a doctor, Abe studied medicine at Tokyo University. Despite his educational background, he never practiced medicine, opting instead to join a literary group that aimed to apply surrealist techniques to Marxist ideology. He first published as a poet in 1947 with Mumei shishu ("Poems of an unknown poet") and as a novelist the following year with Owarishi michi no shirube ni ("The Road Sign at the End of the Street"), which established his reputation. Abe's literary contributions, alongside those of Yukio Mishima and Yasunari Kawabata, have played a significant role in renewing 20th-century Japanese literature.