The Stranger's Face

«The Stranger's Face» — a recognized masterpiece by Kobo Abe, a Japanese master of profound and paradoxical philosophical prose. The unnamed protagonist of the novel and narrator is a scientist who was injured in an explosion in the laboratory. He tries to hide his burns, fearing loneliness and alienation, and directs his efforts towards creating a realistic mask that would allow him to become part of the world of people with normal faces again. However, upon putting it on, the scientist suddenly realizes that it is not he who is using the mask, but the mask that is using him, provoking him to very strange desires and actions and gradually changing his personality. The fear of losing oneself and the fear of being rejected, the endless search for the true «self» generates a mixture no less explosive than that which burned his real face.