Victor Pelevin?
It mystifies me that no one ever credits the Russian for his short story with the exact same plot, written in the early 90s. Not that Pelevin is that world renowned or anything, but he still has enough literary weight behind him to make this somewhat obvious... For anyone curious enough to read this somewhat dark tale (which I've enjoyed since I was 8), here's the link to the english translation:
http://www.lib.ru/PELEWIN/hermit.txt