Beasts Head for Home

Beasts Head for Home (けものたちは故郷をめざす, Kemono tachi wa kokyou wo mezasu, 1957) is an early autobiographical novel by Japanese writer Kōbō Abe. It was translated into English, with an introduction, by Richard F. Calichman for Columbia University Press in 2017 as part of the Weatherhead Books on Asia series.

The books is divided into four chapters: "The Rusted Tracks," "The Flag," "The Trap," and "Doors."

Plot
The story concerns a Japanese adolescent named Kiku Kyuzo, an orphan living in Manchuria at the end of the Japanese occupation in 1945, who attempts to make his way back to his ancestral homeland, a country he has never known. Soviet forces have arrived in Manchuria, and most of the Japanese civilians living there have already fled, but Kyuzo stays behind to care for his ailing mother. After her death, Kyuzo becomes the charge of two Soviet soldiers, who treat him well but will not allow him to leave. At the onset of the Chinese Civil War, the Red Army withdraws, and Kyuzo is finally able to begin the long journey south that he hopes will lead to his repatriation in Japan.

Reception
Kirkus Reviews describes the novel as "a memorable portrait of statelessness, exile, and wandering." In the Asian Review of Books, Peter Gordon writes "Beasts Head for Home is as riveting and as unforgiving as the frigid Civil War wilderness in which it is set," praises Calichman's translation, but finds his introduction to be "overly complex for the lay reader." The Memphis Flyer finds Beasts to be a "good novel," but "a preparation for the greater novels to come."