Kenichi Abe is a professor at the University of Tokyo. He specializes in Central European and comparative literature, with a particular interest in translatology and manuscript studies. Since 2023, he has also been Director of the Kenzaburô Ôé Library at the University of Tokyo.
After studying at Charles University in Prague and obtaining a DEA at the University of Paris IV, he graduated in literature from Tokyo University of Foreign Languages. Since 2016, he has been teaching Central European literature and comparative literature (including Japanese literature) at the Doctoral School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Tokyo.
He is the author of: Fukusukei no Praha (translated into French by Prague au pluriel, 2012, in Japanese) and Honyaku to paratekusuto (Translations and paratexts: Jungmann, Eisner and Kundera, 2024, in Japanese). He also edited Perspectives on Contemporary East European Literature: Beyond National and Regional Frames (2016, in English). He has also published numerous articles on Kenzaburô Ôé's manuscripts.
Among his many Japanese translations are works by Karel Čapek, Bohumil Hrabal, Václav Havel, Michal Ajvaz and Kateřina Tučková. He has also translated Milan Kundera'sUn Occident kidnappé ou la tragédie de l'Europe centraleinto Japanese . For his contribution to Czech literature, he was awarded the Premia Bohemica Prize in 2025.