"The Man Who Turned Into A Stick"(棒になった男 - Bō ni natta otoko) is a one-act play written by Kōbō Abe. It is the third of three plays written over twelve years (1957-1969)[1] meant to symbolize the different stages of life, usually shown together. The first, representing birth, is "The Suitcase". The second, "The Cliff of Time," represents life itself, or "The Process," and the third, "The Man who Turned into a Stick," is death.
This play has been considered as a main example of the current of Magic Realism in Japanese Literature. Other Japanese authors with considerable literary contributions to this genre are: Yasunari Kawabata, Oe Kenzaburo and Yasushi Inoue.