The Modern Novel

Biography

Only since he won the Nobel Prize in 1994 has Kenzaburo Oe been known in the West, though several of his novels have been available in English and other Western languages for many years. His winning the Nobel Prize also put the spotlight on his son, Hikari, the subject of A Personal Matter, born with a brain hernia and given little chance of surviving when born and expected to be severely retarded if he did survive but now an accomplished composer. Oe and his wife were prepared to abandon Hikari but Oe visited a memorial to the dead at Hiroshima and this changed his mind. He has since written extensively about Hiroshima, though has since claimed to have given up writing. In particular, he was sued by two retired Japanese military officers for libel over his allegations that the Japanese military had forced large numbers of Okinawa citizens to commit suicide during the 1945 Allied invasion of the island. He subsequently won this trial but during the period of the trial, he did not write at all.

Apart from his son and Hiroshima, other important themes of Oe’s are his connection to the village where he was born and the changing face of Japan, particularly the emphasis on consumerism. He is very much concerned with human dignity, particularly in the light of the suffering of his son. He won the Nobel Prize in 1994. He died in 2023.

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Kenzaburo Oe
Kenzaburo Oe
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