Kenzaburō Ōe

Short description: Japanese writer and Nobel Laureate (1935–2023)

Kenzaburō Ōe

Ōe in 2012

Native name|

大江 健三郎

Born| (1935-01-31)31 January 1935
Ōse, Ehime, Empire of Japan
(now Uchiko, Ehime, Japan)
Died| 3 March 2023(2023-03-03) (aged 88)
Occupation|

* Novelist
* short-story writer
* essayist

Alma mater| University of Tokyo
Period| 1957–2013
Notable works|

* A Personal Matter (1964)
* The Silent Cry (1967)

Notable awards| Nobel Prize in Literature (1994)
Spouse|

Yukari Ikeuchi (m. 1960)

Children| 3, including Hikari
Relatives|

* Mansaku Itami (father-in-law)
* Juzo Itami (brother-in-law)

Ōe at the Japanisches Kulturinstitut in Cologne on 11 April 2008

Kenzaburō Ōe (大江 健三郎, Ōe Kenzaburō; 31 January 1935 – 3 March 2023) was a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His novels, short stories and essays, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues, including nuclear weapons, nuclear power, social non-conformism, and existentialism. Ōe was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature for creating "an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today".[1]

## Contents

* 1 Early life and education
* 2 Career
* 2.1 Influence of Hikari
* 2.2 2006 to 2008
* 2.3 2013
* 3 Activism
* 4 Personal life and death
* 5 Honors
* 5.1 Nobel Prize in Literature and Japan's Order of Culture
* 5.2 Major awards
* 5.3 Eponymous literary prize
* 6 Selected works
* 7 See also
* 8 Notes
* 9 References
* 10 Further reading
* 11 External links

## Early life and education

Born on the island of Shikoku, Ōe was from Ōse, a village that is now part of Uchiko, in Ehime Prefecture.[2] The third of seven children, he grew up listening to his grandmother, a storyteller of myths and folklore, who also recounted the oral history of the two uprisings in the region before and after the Meiji Restoration.[3][2] His father, Kōtare Ōe, had a bark-stripping business; the bark was used to make paper currency.[2] After his father died in the Pacific War in 1944, his mother, Koseki, became the driving force behind his education, buying him books including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, which had a formative influence on him.[3]

Ōe received the first ten years of his education in local public schools.[4] He started school during the peak of militarism in Japan; in class, he was forced to pronounce his loyalty to Emperor Hirohito, who his teacher claimed was a god.[2] After the war, he realized he had been taught lies and felt betrayed. This sense of betrayal later appeared in his writing.[2]

Ōe attended high school in Matsuyama from 1951 to 1953, where he excelled as a student.[4][2] At the age of 18, he made his first trip to Tokyo, where he studied at a prep school (yobikō) for one year.[4][3] The following year, he began studying French Literature at the University of Tokyo with Professor Kazuo Watanabe, a specialist on François Rabelais.[3]

## Career

Ōe began publishing stories in 1957, while still a student, strongly influenced by contemporary writing in France and the United States.[3] He was particularly influenced by the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre.[5] His first work to be published was "Lavish are the Dead", a short story set in Tokyo during the American occupation, which appeared in Bungakukai literary magazine.[6] His early works were set in his own university milieu.[7]

In 1958, his short story "Shiiku" (飼育) was awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize.[6] The work was about a black GI set upon by Japanese youth, and was later made into a film, The Catch by Nagisa Oshima in 1961.[7] Another early novella, later translated as Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, focused on young children living in Arcadian transformations of Ōe's own rural Shikoku childhood.[7] Ōe identified these child figures as belonging to the 'child god' archetype of Jung and Kerényi, which is characterised by abandonment, hermaphrodism, invincibility, and association with beginning and end.[8] The first two characteristics are present in these early stories, while the latter two features come to the fore in the 'idiot boy' stories which appeared after the birth of his son Hikari.[9]: 135

Between 1958 and 1961 Ōe published a series of works incorporating sexual metaphors for the occupation of Japan. He summarised the common theme of these stories as "the relationship of a foreigner as the big power [Z], a Japanese who is more or less placed in a humiliating position [X], and, sandwiched between the two, the third party [Y] (sometimes a prostitute who caters only to foreigners or an interpreter)".[10] In each of these works, the Japanese X is inactive, failing to take the initiative to resolve the situation and showing no psychological or spiritual development.[9]: 32 The graphically sexual nature of this group of stories prompted a critical outcry; Ōe said of the culmination of the series Our Times, "I personally like this novel [because] I do not think I will ever write another novel which is filled only with sexual words."[9]: 29

In 1961, Ōe's novellas Seventeen and The Death of a Political Youth were published in the Japanese literary magazine Bungakukai. Both were inspired by seventeen-year-old Yamaguchi Otoya, who had assassinated Japan Socialist Party chairman Inejirō Asanuma in October 1960, and then killed himself in prison three weeks later.[11] Yamaguchi had admirers among the extreme right wing who were angered by The Death of a Political Youth and both Ōe and the magazine received death threats day and night for weeks. The magazine soon apologized to offended readers, but Ōe did not,[2] and he was later physically assaulted by an angry right-winger while giving a speech at the University of Tokyo.[12]

Ōe's next phase moved away from sexual content, shifting this time toward the violent fringes of society. The works which he published between 1961 and 1964 are influenced by existentialism and picaresque literature, populated with more or less criminal rogues and anti-heroes whose position on the fringes of society allows them to make pointed criticisms of it.[9]: 47 Ōe's admission that Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is his favorite book can be said to find a context in this period.[13]

### Influence of Hikari

Book cover of the 1996 English version of Kenzaburō Ōe's book about his handicapped son and their life as a family.

Ōe credited his son Hikari for influencing his literary career. Ōe tried to give his son a "voice" through his writing. Several of Ōe's books feature a character based on his son.[14]

In Ōe's 1964 book, A Personal Matter, the writer describes the psychological trauma involved in accepting his brain-damaged son into his life.[3] Hikari figures prominently in many of the books singled out for praise by the Nobel committee, and his life is the core of the first book published after Ōe was awarded the Nobel Prize. The 1996 book, A Healing Family, is a memoir written as a collection of essays.[15]

### 2006 to 2008

In 2005, two retired Japanese military officers sued Ōe for libel for his 1970 book of essays, Okinawa Notes, in which he had written that members of the Japanese military had coerced masses of Okinawan civilians into committing suicide during the Allied invasion of the island in 1945. In March 2008, the Osaka District Court dismissed all charges against Ōe. In this ruling, Judge Toshimasa Fukami stated, "The military was deeply involved in the mass suicides". In a news conference following the trial, Ōe said, "The judge accurately read my writing."[16]

Ōe did not write much during the nearly two years (2006–2008) of his libel case. He began writing a new novel, which The New York Times reported would feature a character "based on his father," a staunch supporter of the imperial system who drowned in a flood during World War II.[17] Death by Water was published in 2009.

### 2013

Bannen Yoshikishu, his final novel, is the sixth in a series with the main character of Kogito Choko, who can be considered Ōe's literary alter ego. The novel is also in a sense a culmination of the I-novels that Ōe continued to write since his son was born developmentally disabled in 1963. In the novel, Choko loses interest in the novel he had been writing when the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami struck the Tohoku region on 11 March 2011. Instead, he begins writing about an age of catastrophe, as well as about the fact that he himself was approaching his late 70s.[18]

## Activism

In 1959 and 1960, Ōe participated in the Anpo protests against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty as a member of a group of young writers, artists, and composers called the "Young Japan Society" (Wakai Nihon no Kai).[19] The treaty allowed the United States to maintain military bases in Japan, and Ōe's disappointment at the failure of the protests to stop the treaty shaped his future writing.[12][20]

Ōe at a 2013 antinuclear demonstration in Tokyo

Ōe was involved with pacifist and anti-nuclear campaigns and wrote books regarding the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Hibakusha. After meeting prominent American anti-nuclear activist Noam Chomsky at a Harvard degree ceremony, Ōe began his correspondence with Chomsky by sending him a copy of his Okinawa Notes. While also discussing Ōe's Okinawa Notes, Chomsky's reply included a story from his childhood. Chomsky wrote that when he first heard about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, he could not bear it being celebrated, and he went in the woods and sat alone until the evening.[21] Ōe later said in an interview, "I've always respected Chomsky, but I respected him even more after he told me that."[22]

In a 2007 interview with The Paris Review, Ōe described himself as an anarchist. Stating: "In principle, I am an anarchist. Kurt Vonnegut once said he was an agnostic who respects Jesus Christ. I am an anarchist who loves democracy."[23]

Following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, he urged Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to "halt plans to restart nuclear power plants and instead abandon nuclear energy".[24] Ōe said Japan has an "ethical responsibility" to abandon nuclear power in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, just as it renounced war under its postwar Constitution. He called for "an immediate end to nuclear power generation and warned that Japan would suffer another nuclear catastrophe if it tries to resume nuclear power plant operations". In 2013, he organized a mass demonstration in Tokyo against nuclear power.[25] Ōe also criticized moves to amend Article 9 of the Constitution, which forever renounces war.[26]

In 2015, Ōe stated that he believed that the Japanese government had not adequately acknowledged or apologized for the comfort women issue.[27]

## Personal life and death

Ōe married in February 1960. His wife, Yukari, was the daughter of film director Mansaku Itami and sister of film director Juzo Itami. The same year he met Mao Zedong on a trip to China. He also went to Russia and Europe the following year, visiting Sartre in Paris.[22][12]

Ōe lived in Tokyo and had three children.[28] In 1963, his eldest son, Hikari, was born with a brain hernia.[29] Ōe initially struggled to accept his son's condition, which required surgery which would leave him with learning disabilities for life.[28] Hikari lived with Kenzaburō and Yukari until he was middle-aged, and often composed music in the same room where his father was writing.[28]

Ōe died on 3 March 2023 at the age of 88, reportedly due to old age.[28][30][29][6]

## Honors

### Nobel Prize in Literature and Japan's Order of Culture

In 1994 Ōe won the Nobel Prize in Literature and was named to receive Japan's Order of Culture. He refused the latter because it is bestowed by the Emperor. Ōe said, "I do not recognize any authority, any value, higher than democracy." Once again, he received threats.[2]

Shortly after learning that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize, Ōe said that he was encouraged by the Swedish Academy's recognition of modern Japanese literature, and hoped that it would inspire other writers.[31] He told The New York Times that his writing was ultimately focused on "the dignity of human beings."[31]

### Major awards

* Tokyo University May Festival Prize, 1957.[32]
* Akutagawa Prize, 1958.[7]
* Shinchosha Literary Prize, 1964.[33]
* Tanizaki Prize, 1967.[33]
* Noma Prize, 1973.[33]
* Yomiuri Prize, 1982.[34]
* Jiro Osaragi Prize (Asahi Shimbun), 1983.[33]
* Nobel Prize in Literature, 1994.[31]
* Order of Culture, 1994 – refused.[35][33]
* Knight of the Legion of Honour (France, 2002).[36]
* Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (France, 2012)[37]

### Eponymous literary prize

In 2005, the Kenzaburō Ōe Prize was established by publisher Kodansha to promote Japanese literary novels internationally,[38] with the first prize awarded in 2007.[39] The winning work was selected solely by Ōe,[38] to be translated into English, French, or German, and published worldwide.[39]

## Selected works

The number of Kenzaburō Ōe's works translated into English and other languages remains limited, so that much of his literary output is still only available in Japanese.[40] The few translations have often appeared after a marked lag in time.[41] Works of his have also been translated into Chinese, French, and German.[42]

Year  | Japanese Title  | English Title  | Comments  | Ref.

|
|
|
|

1957  | 死者の奢り
Shisha no ogori | Lavish Are The Dead | Short story published in Bungakukai literary magazine  | [6]
奇妙な仕事
Kimyō na shigoto | The Strange Work | Short novel awarded May Festival Prize by University of Tokyo newspaper  | [43]

Shiiku | "The Catch" / "Prize Stock"  | Short story awarded the Akutagawa prize. Published in English as "Prize Stock" in Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness (1977) and as "The Catch" in "The Catch and Other War Stories" (Kodansha International 1981).

Made into a film in 1961 by Nagisa Oshima and in 2011 by the Cambodian director Rithy Panh.

| [43][44][45][46]
1958  | 見るまえに跳べ
Miru mae ni tobe | Leap Before You Look | Short story; title is a reference to W. H. Auden  | [47][48]
芽むしり仔撃ち
Memushiri kōchi | Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids | One of his earliest novellas, translated in 1995  | [49]
1961  | セヴンティーン
Sevuntiin | Seventeen | Short novel translated by Luk Van Haute in 1996. The sequel was so controversial that Ōe never allowed it to be republished.  | [50]
1963  | 叫び声
Sakebigoe | Outcries | Untranslated  | [51]
性的人間
Seiteki ningen | J (published title)

Sexual Humans (literal translation)

| Short story translated by Luk Van Haute in 1996  | [50]
1964  | 空の怪物アグイー
Sora no kaibutsu Aguī | Aghwee the Sky Monster | Short story translated by John Nathan.  | [52]
個人的な体験
Kojinteki na taiken | A Personal Matter | Awarded the Shinchosha Literary Prize. Translated by John Nathan.  | [53]
1965  | ヒロシマ・ノート
Hiroshima nōto | Hiroshima Notes | Collection of essays translated by Toshi Yonezawa and edited by David L. Swain  | [54]
1967  | 万延元年のフットボール
Man'en gan'nen no futtobōru | The Silent Cry (published title)

Football in the Year 1860 (literal translation)

| Translated by John Bester  | [55][48]
1969  | われらの狂気を生き延びる道を教えよ
Warera no kyōki wo ikinobiru michi wo oshieyo | Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness | Translated by John Nathan in 1977; title is a reference to W. H. Auden  | [56][48]
1970  | 沖縄ノート
Okinawa nōto | Okinawa Notes | Collection of essays that became the target of a defamation lawsuit filed in 2005 which was dismissed in 2008  | [16]
1972  | 鯨の死滅する日
Kujira no shimetsu suru hi | The Day the Whales Shall be Annihilated | Collection of essays including "The Continuity of Norman Mailer"  | [52]
みずから我が涙をぬぐいたまう日
Mizukara waga namida wo nuguitamau hi | The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away | Short novel parodying Yukio Mishima; translated by John Nathan and published in the volume Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness | [48][57]
1973  | 洪水はわが魂に及び
Kōzui wa waga tamashii ni oyobi | My Deluged Soul | Awarded the 26th Noma Literary Prize. Work has also been referred to as The Waters Are Come in unto My Soul. | [3][52][58]
1976  | ピンチランナー調書
Pinchi ran'nā chōsho | The Pinch Runner Memorandum | Translated by Michiko N. Wilson and Michael K. Wilson  | [4]
1979  | 同時代ゲーム
Dōjidai gēmu | The Game of Contemporaneity | Untranslated
1982  | 「雨の木」を聴く女たち
Rein tsurī wo kiku on'natachi | Women Listening to the "Rain Tree" | Collection of two short stories and three novellas. Awarded the 34th Yomiuri Literary Prize for novels.  | [59][60]
1983  | 新しい人よ眼ざめよ
Atarashii hito yo, mezameyo | Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! | Collection of seven short stories originally published in Gunzo and Shincho magazines between 1982 and 1983. The title is taken from the preface to the poem Milton by William Blake. Awarded the 10th Jiro Osaragi Prize. Translated by John Nathan.
1985  | 河馬に嚙まれる
Kaba ni kamareru | Bitten by a Hippopotamus | Eight short stories, loosely linked  | [61]
1986  | M/Tと森のフシギの物語
M/T to mori no fushigi no monogatari | M/T and the Wonder of the Forest | Title has also been translated as Strange Stories of M/T and the Forest | [59][62]
1987  | 懐かしい年への手紙
Natsukashī toshi e no tegami | Letters to the Time/Space of Fond Memories | Autobiographical novel  | [63]
1988  | 「最後の小説」
Saigo no shōsetsu | The Last Novel | Collection of essays  | [4]
1989  | 人生の親戚
Jinsei no shinseki | An Echo of Heaven (published title)

Relatives of Life (literal translation)

| Translated by Margaret Mitsutani  | [51]
1990  | 治療塔
Chiryō tō | Towers of Healing | Novel first serialized in Hermes magazine; first work of science fiction  | [64]
静かな生活
Shizuka na seikatsu | A Quiet Life | Translated by Kunioki Yanagishita & William Wetherall  | [65]
1991  | 治療塔惑星
Chiryō tō wakusei | Planet of the Healing Tower | Science fiction novel paired with Chiryō tō
1992  | 僕が本当に若かった頃
Boku ga hontō ni wakakatta koro | When I Was Really Young | Volume of nine vignettes, many of which refer to his previous works  | [66]
1993  | 「救い主」が殴られるまで
'Sukuinushi' ga nagurareru made | Until the Savior Gets Beaten | Part I of The Burning Green Tree Trilogy (燃えあがる緑の木 第一部, Moeagaru midori no ki – dai ichibu)  | [59]
1994  | 揺れ動く (ヴァシレーション)
Yureugoku (Vashirēshon) | Vacillation | Part II of The Burning Green Tree Trilogy (燃えあがる緑の木 第二部, Moeagaru midori no ki – dai nibu)  | [59]
1995  | 大いなる日に
Ōinaru hi ni | For the Day of Grandeur | Part III of The Burning Green Tree Trilogy (燃えあがる緑の木 第三部, Moeagaru midori no ki – dai sanbu) | [59]
曖昧な日本の私
Aimai na Nihon no watashi | Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself | Nobel Prize acceptance speech; the title is a reference to Yasunari Kawabata's Nobel acceptance speech, "Japan, the Beautiful, and Myself". In 1995, nine lectures given by Ōe in the 1990s were published in the same volume with this title.  | [67][68]
恢復する家族
Kaifukusuru kazoku | A Healing Family | Collection of essays serialized from 1990 to 1995 in Sawarabi, a journal on rehabilitative medicine, with an afterword and drawings by Yukari Oe. Adapted and translated in 1996 by Stephen Snyder.  | [69]
1999  | 宙返り
Chūgaeri | Somersault | Translated by Philip Gabriel  | [70]
2000  | 取り替え子 (チェンジリング)
Torikae ko (Chenjiringu) | The Changeling | Translated by Deborah Boliver Boehm  | [71]
2001  | 「自分の木」の下で
'Jibun no ki' no shita de | Under One's Own Tree | 16 essays reflecting on Ōe's childhood and experience as a novelist and father  | [72]
2002  | 憂い顔の童子
Urei gao no dōji | Gloomy Faced Child | Novel  | [73]
2007  | 臈たしアナベル・リイ 総毛立ちつ身まかりつ
Rōtashi Anaberu Rī sōkedachitsu mimakaritsu | The Beautiful Annabel Lee was Chilled and Killed | Winner of the 2008 Weishanhu Award for Best Foreign Novel in the 21st Century.  | [74]
2009  | 水死
Sui shi | Death by Water | Translated by Deborah Boliver Boehm  | [75]
2013  | 晩年様式集(イン・レイト・スタイル)
Bannen Yōshiki shū (In Reito Sutairu)  | In Late Style | Final work. Title is a reference to Edward Said's On Late Style.  | [76]

## See also

* List of Japanese Nobel laureates
* List of Nobel laureates affiliated with the University of Tokyo
* Anti-nuclear power movement in Japan
* Relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma
* Anarchism in Japan

## Notes

1. ↑ "Oe, Pamuk: World needs imagination" , Yomiuri.co.jp; 18 May 2008.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Weston, Mark (1999). Giants of Japan: The Lives of Japan's Most Influential Men and Women. New York: Kodansha International. pp. 294–295, 299. ISBN 1-568362862. https://archive.org/details/giantsofjapanliv00west/page/294.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 "Kenzburo Oe – Biographical". https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1994/oe/biographical/.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 "[Introduction Kenzaburo Ōe"]. The Georgia Review 49 (1): 331–334. Spring 1995. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41401647.
5. ↑ "In the forest of the soul: Oe Kenzaburo at 70". 28 March 2005. https://apjjf.org/maya-jaggi/1742/article.
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Benoza, Kathleen (13 March 2023). "Nobel-winning Japanese novelist Kenzaburo Oe dies at 88". The Japan Times. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/03/13/national/kenzaburo-oe-obit/.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Wilson, Michiko N. (1986) (in en). The Marginal World of Oe Kenzaburo. M. E. Sharpe Incorporated. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-7656-3564-8. https://books.google.com/books?id=2jhGkLyWN8cC&q=he+Marginal+World+of+%C5%8Ce+Kenzabur%C5%8D:+A+Study+in+Themes+and+Techniques++ISBN.
8. ↑ Oe, Kenzaburo (1978) (in ja). Shōsetsu no hōhō (The Method of a Novel). Tokyo: Iwanami. pp. 197.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Wilson, Michiko N. (1986). The Marginal World of Ōe Kenzaburō: A Study in Themes and Techniques. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-87332-343-7.
10. ↑ Ōe, Ōe Kenzaburō Zensakuhin, Vol. 2 (Supplement No. 3). p. 16.
11. ↑ Kapur, Nick (2018). Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 254, 257. ISBN 978-0674984424. https://books.google.com/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ.
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Jaggi, Maya (5 February 2005). "Profile: Kenzaburo Oë". https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/feb/05/featuresreviews.guardianreview9.
13. ↑ Theroux, Paul. "Speaking of Books: Creative Dissertating; Creative Dissertating", nytimes.com, 8 February 1970.
14. ↑ Sobsey, Richard . "Hikari Finds His Voice," Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC), produced by Compassionate Healthcare Network (CHN). July 1995.
15. ↑ "A Healing Family". 1996. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kenzaburo-oe/a-healing-family/.
16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Onishi, Norimitsu (29 March 2008). "Japanese Court Rejects Defamation Lawsuit Against Nobel Laureate". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/world/asia/29japan.html.
17. ↑ Onishi, Norimitsu (17 May 2008). "The Saturday Profile: Released From Rigors of a Trial, a Nobel Laureate's Ink Flows Freely". New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/world/asia/17oe.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss.
18. ↑ "Oe's latest novel offers glimmer of hope in a world beset by catastrophe". http://ajw.asahi.com/article/cool_japan/culture/AJ201312160006.
19. ↑ Kapur, Nick (2018). Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 177. ISBN 978-0674984424. https://books.google.com/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ.
20. ↑ Kapur, Nick (2018). Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 216. ISBN 978-0674984424. https://books.google.com/books?id=Re5hDwAAQBAJ.
21. ↑ Oe, K., & Chomsky, N. (2002). An Exchange on Current Affairs. World Literature Today,76(2), 29. doi:10.2307/40157257, 29 April 2019
22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Fay, Sarah (2007). "The Art of Fiction No. 195" (in en). Winter 2007. ISSN 0031-2037. https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5816/the-art-of-fiction-no-195-kenzaburo-oe.
23. ↑ "The Art of Fiction No. 195" (in en). Winter 2007. 2007. ISSN 0031-2037. https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5816/the-art-of-fiction-no-195-kenzaburo-oe.
24. ↑ "Nobel laureate Oe urges nation to end reliance on nuclear power". The Japan Times. 8 September 2011. http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110908a5.html.
25. ↑ http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130915p2g00m0dm013000c.html Mainichi Daily News, 15 September 2013, "Some 8,000 March in Tokyo Against Restart of Any Nuclear Power Plants" (accessed 10 November 2013)
26. ↑ http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201305180039 Asahi Shumbun, 18 May 2013, "Writer Oe calls for stopping moves to revise Constitution" (accessed 9 November 2013)
27. ↑ 임, 광빈 (2015-03-14). "'노벨상 작가' 오에 겐자부로, "군 위안부 문제 사죄해야"" (in ko). Yonhap News Agency. https://www.yna.co.kr/view/MYH20150314001600038.
28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 28.2 28.3 Lewis, Daniel (13 March 2023). "Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel Laureate and Critic of Postwar Japan, Dies at 88". https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/books/kenzaburo-oe-dead.html.
29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 "Nobel prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe dies". 13 March 2023. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-64938314.
30. ↑ Cain, Sian (13 March 2023). "Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel prize-winning Japanese writer, dies aged 88". https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/13/kenzaburo-oe-nobel-prize-winning-japanese-writer-dies.
31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 31.2 Sterngold, James (14 October 1994). "Nobel in Literature Goes to Kenzaburo Oe of Japan" (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/14/books/nobel-in-literature-goes-to-kenzaburo-oe-of-japan-526100.html.
32. ↑ Wilson, Michiko Niikuni. "Kenzaburo Oe: Laughing Prophet and Soulful Healer". https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1994/oe/article/.
33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 33.2 33.3 33.4 "Authors – Kenzaburo Oe". https://groveatlantic.com/author/kenzaburo-oe/.
34. ↑ Fowler, Edward (1988). The Rhetoric of Confession. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 295. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft0k400349/.
35. ↑ Onishi, Norimitsu (17 May 2008). "Released From Rigors of a Trial, a Nobel Laureate's Ink Flows Freely" (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/world/asia/17oe.html.
36. ↑ "Novelist Oe inducted into France's Legion of Honor. – Free Online Library". http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Novelist+Oe+inducted+into+France's+Legion+of+Honor.-a086465288.
37. ↑ "Déclaration de M. Frédéric Mitterrand, ministre de la culture et de la communication, sur le livre et la lecture et la coopération culturelle entre la France et le Japon, Paris le 16 mars 2012". https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/184766-frederic-mitterrand-16032012-livre-cooperation-culturelle-avec-le-japon.
38. ↑ 38.0 38.1 "Kodansha creates Kenzaburo Oe literary award". The Japan Times. 6 October 2005. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2005/10/06/national/kodansha-creates-kenzaburo-oe-literary-award/.
39. ↑ 39.0 39.1 "大江健三郎賞" (in Japanese). http://www.kodansha.co.jp/kaigai/ooe/index.html.
40. ↑ Liukkonen, Petri. "Kenzaburo Ōe". Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/oe.htm.
41. ↑ Tayler, Christopher (11 June 2010). "The Changeling by Kenzaburo Oe" (in en-GB). The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jun/12/the-changeling-kenzaburo-oe-review.
42. ↑ Jing, Xiaolei (13 February 2009). "Embracing Foreign Literature". http://www.bjreview.com/nation/txt/2009-02/13/content_178235.htm.
43. ↑ 43.0 43.1 "Nobel-winning anti-war author Kenzaburo Oe dies at 88". Asahi Shimbun. 13 March 2023. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14860302.
44. ↑ "Kenzburo Oe – Bibliography". https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1994/oe/bibliography/.
45. ↑ Bingham, Adam (Winter 2010). "Oshima's Outlaw Sixties". Cineaste. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asu&AN=505378635&lang=en-gb&site=eds-live&scope=site.
46. ↑ "[Review The Catch"]. Variety. 20 November 2011. https://variety.com/2011/film/reviews/the-catch-2-1117946623/.
47. ↑ Hillenbrand, Margaret (Summer 2007). "Doppelgängers, Misogyny, and the San Francisco System: The Occupation Narratives of Ōe Kenzaburō". The Journal of Japanese Studies 33 (2): 383–414. doi:10.1353/jjs.2007.0061. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25064725. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
48. ↑ 48.0 48.1 48.2 48.3 Sakurai, Emiko (Summer 1984). "Kenzaburō Ōe: The Early Years". World Literature Today 58 (3): 370–373. doi:10.2307/40139376. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40139376.
49. ↑ Ryan, Marleigh Grayer (Spring 2002). "'And a Little Child Shall Lead Them': The Agency of the Innocent in an Early Story by Ōe Kenzaburō". World Literature Today 76 (2): 49–47. doi:10.2307/40157259. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40157259. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
50. ↑ 50.0 50.1 Goff, Janet (January–March 1997). "Two Novels: Seventeen & J". Japan Quarterly 44 (1): 102–103. ProQuest 234917125. https://www.proquest.com/docview/234917125.
51. ↑ 51.0 51.1 Reinsma, Luke M. (Autumn 1998). "The Flight of Kenzaburo Oe". Christianity and Literature 48 (1): 61–77. doi:10.1177/014833319804800107. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44314194.
52. ↑ 52.0 52.1 52.2 Wilson, Michiko N. (Winter 1981). "Oe's Obsessive Metaphor, Mori, the Idiot Son: Toward the Imagination of Satire, Regeneration, and Grotesque Realism". The Journal of Japanese Studies 7 (1): 23–52. doi:10.2307/132164. https://www.jstor.org/stable/132164.
53. ↑ Rodden, John (Summer 2002). "Team play: Translator John Nathan on Oe Kenzaburo, the 1994 Nobel Prize winner". The Midwest Quarterly 43 (4): 281–297. ProQuest 195704728. https://www.proquest.com/docview/195704728.
54. ↑ Treat, John Whittier (June 1987). "Hiroshima Nōto and Ōe Kenzaburō's Existentialist Other". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 47 (1): 97–136. doi:10.2307/2719159. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2719159.
55. ↑ Loughman, Celeste (Summer 1999). "The Seamless Universe of Oe Kenzaburo". World Literature Today 73 (3): 417–422. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40154866.
56. ↑ Sakurai, Emiko (Spring 1978). "[Review Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness by Kenzaburo Ōé, John Nathan"]. World Literature Today 52 (2). doi:10.2307/40132987. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40132987.
57. ↑ Iwamoto, Yoshio (April 1979). "[Review Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness by Kenzaburô Ôe and John Nathan"]. The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese 14 (1): 66–83. doi:10.2307/489541. https://www.jstor.org/stable/489541.
58. ↑ "洪水はわが魂に及び" (in Japanese). https://kotobank.jp/word/洪水はわが魂に及び-1696134.
59. ↑ 59.0 59.1 59.2 59.3 59.4 Yoshida, Sanroku (Winter 1995). "The Burning Tree: The Spatialized World of Kenzaburō Ōe". World Literature Today 69 (1): 10–16. doi:10.2307/40150850. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40150850.
60. ↑ "「雨の木」を聴く女たち" (in Japanese). https://kotobank.jp/word/「雨の木」を聴く女たち-1718425.
61. ↑ Nishi, Kinya (Summer 2022). "The Dialectics of Realist Imagination: Adorno's Aesthetics and Contemporary Japanese Fiction". Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics 45 (2): 85–96. http://jcla.in/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/JCLA-45.2-Suppl._Kinya-Nishi.pdf.
62. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `Napier 1993`
63. ↑ Yoshida, Sanroku (Summer 1988). "[Review Natsukashii toshi e no tegami by Ōe Kenzaburō"]. World Literature Today 62 (3): 510–511. doi:10.2307/40144480. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40144480.
64. ↑ Yoshida, Sanroku (Spring 1991). "[Review Chiryō-tō by Ōe Kenzaburō"]. World Literature Today 65 (2): 368. doi:10.2307/40147320. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40147320.
65. ↑ Morley, John David (17 November 1996). "Her Brother's Keeper". The New York Times. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/nnp/oe-quiet.html?scp=80&sq=child%20molester&st=cse.
66. ↑ Iwamoto, Yoshio (Spring 1993). "[Review Boku ga hontō ni wakakatta koro by Ōe Kenzaburō"]. World Literature Today 67 (2): 451. doi:10.2307/40149314. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40149314.
67. ↑ "あいまいな日本の私" (in Japanese). https://kotobank.jp/word/あいまいな日本の私-1715854.
68. ↑ Oe, Kenzaburo (Winter 1995). "Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself". The Australian Quarterly 67 (2): 1–10. doi:10.2307/20635813. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20635813.
69. ↑ Mizenko, Matthew (Summer 1997). "[Review A Healing Family by Ο̄e Kenzaburο̄ and Stephen Snyder"]. Monumenta Nipponica 52 (2): 266–268. doi:10.2307/2385576. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2385576.
70. ↑ Minor, Kyle (Summer 2003). "[Review Somersault by Kenzaburo Oe"]. The Antioch Review 61 (3): 582–583. doi:10.2307/4614535. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4614535.
71. ↑ Tayler, Christopher (12 June 2010). "[Review The Changeling by Kenzaburo Oe"]. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jun/12/the-changeling-kenzaburo-oe-review.
72. ↑ Ashby, Janet (14 October 2001). "Kenzaburo Oe: Bridging the generation gap". The Japan Times. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2001/10/14/books/book-reviews/kenzaburo-oe-bridging-the-generation-gap/.
73. ↑ Bantarō, Seiro; Prichard, Franz (December 2006). "Modern Japanese Literature and 'Don Quixote'". Review of Japanese Culture and Society 18: 132–146. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42800231.
74. ↑ Jing, Xiaolei (13 February 2009). "Embracing Foreign Literature". Beijing Review. http://www.bjreview.com/nation/txt/2009-02/13/content_178235.htm.
75. ↑ Hong, Terry (6 October 2015). "'Death by Water' takes readers on a wild ride of epic proportions". The Christian Science Monitor. https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2015/1006/Death-by-Water-takes-readers-on-a-wild-ride-of-epic-proportions.
76. ↑ Pons, Philippe (21 May 2015). "Kenzaburô Oe : " L'âge n'apporte pas la sérénité "" (in fr). Le Monde. https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2015/05/23/l-age-n-apporte-pas-la-serenite_4639157_3246.html.

## References

* Ōe, Kenzaburō. (1968). Ōe Kenzaburō Zensakuhin (Complete Works of Oe Kenzaburo).Tokyo: Shinchosha.
* _____________. (1978). Shosetsu no hoho (The Method of a Novel). Tokyo: Iwanami.
* Wilson, Michiko N. (1986). The Marginal World of Ōe Kenzaburō: A Study in Themes and Techniques. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-87332-343-7 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-56324-580-0 (paper)
* Oe, K. (2007, Winter). The Art of Fiction No. 195 [Interview by S. Fay]. Retrieved 23 April 2019, from https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5816/kenzaburo-oe-the-art-of-fiction-no-195-kenzaburo-oe
* Kenzaburō, Ōe; Chomsky, Noam (2002). "An Exchange on Current Affairs". World Literature Today (University of Oklahoma Board of Regents) 76 (2): 29. doi:10.2307/40157257. ISSN 0196-3570.

## Further reading

* Kimura, Akio. (2007) Faulkner and Oe: The Self-Critical Imagination. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America.
* Rapp, Rayne and Faye Ginsburg. "Enabling Disability: Rewriting Kinship, Reimagining Citizenship." (Archive) Public Culture. Volume 13, Issue 3. pp. 533–556.
* Ueda, Hozumi (上田 穗積 Ueda Hozumi). "Mice and Elephants, or Forests and Prairies : A Comparison of Ohe Kenzaburoh and Murakami Haruki" (鼠と象、あるいは森と平原 : 大江健三郎と村上春樹) (in Japanese) National Institute of Informatics (NII) Article ID (NAID) :40019369258. NII NACSIS-CAT ID (NCID) :AN10074725. ISSN 0910-3430. Journal Type :大学紀要. NDL Article ID :023863147. NDL Source Classification :ZV1(一般学術誌—一般学術誌・大学紀要). NDL Call No. :Z22-1315. Databases : NDL
* Wilson, Michiko N. (2007). ″Kenzaburo Ôe: Laughing Prophet and Soulful Healer,″ on the official Nobel Foundation Website, The Nobel Prize in Literature 1994

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Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature

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* 1901: Sully Prudhomme
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* 1921: Anatole France
* 1922: Jacinto Benavente
* 1923: W. B. Yeats
* 1924: Władysław Reymont
* 1925: George Bernard Shaw

1926–1950|

* 1926: Grazia Deledda
* 1927: Henri Bergson
* 1928: Sigrid Undset
* 1929: Thomas Mann
* 1930: Sinclair Lewis
* 1931: Erik Axel Karlfeldt
* 1932: John Galsworthy
* 1933: Ivan Bunin
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* 1939: Frans Eemil Sillanpää
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* 1944: Johannes V. Jensen
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* 1948: T. S. Eliot
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* 1950: Bertrand Russell

1951–1975|

* 1951: Pär Lagerkvist
* 1952: François Mauriac
* 1953: Winston Churchill
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* 1955: Halldór Laxness
* 1956: Juan Ramón Jiménez
* 1957: Albert Camus
* 1958: Boris Pasternak
* 1959: Salvatore Quasimodo
* 1960: Saint-John Perse
* 1961: Ivo Andrić
* 1962: John Steinbeck
* 1963: Giorgos Seferis
* 1964: Jean-Paul Sartre (declined award)
* 1965: Mikhail Sholokhov
* 1966: Shmuel Yosef Agnon / Nelly Sachs
* 1967: Miguel Ángel Asturias
* 1968: Yasunari Kawabata
* 1969: Samuel Beckett
* 1970: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
* 1971: Pablo Neruda
* 1972: Heinrich Böll
* 1973: Patrick White
* 1974: Eyvind Johnson / Harry Martinson
* 1975: Eugenio Montale

1976–2000|

* 1976: Saul Bellow
* 1977: Vicente Aleixandre
* 1978: Isaac Bashevis Singer
* 1979: Odysseas Elytis
* 1980: Czesław Miłosz
* 1981: Elias Canetti
* 1982: Gabriel García Márquez
* 1983: William Golding
* 1984: Jaroslav Seifert
* 1985: Claude Simon
* 1986: Wole Soyinka
* 1987: Joseph Brodsky
* 1988: Naguib Mahfouz
* 1989: Camilo José Cela
* 1990: Octavio Paz
* 1991: Nadine Gordimer
* 1992: Derek Walcott
* 1993: Toni Morrison
* 1994: Kenzaburō Ōe
* 1995: Seamus Heaney
* 1996: Wisława Szymborska
* 1997: Dario Fo
* 1998: José Saramago
* 1999: Günter Grass
* 2000: Gao Xingjian

2001–present|

* 2001: V. S. Naipaul
* 2002: Imre Kertész
* 2003: J. M. Coetzee
* 2004: Elfriede Jelinek
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1994 Nobel Prize laureates

Chemistry|

George Andrew Olah (United States/Hungary)

Literature|

Kenzaburō Ōe (Japan)

Peace|

* Yasser Arafat (Palestine)
* Shimon Peres (Israel)
* Yitzhak Rabin (Israel)

Physics|

* Bertram Brockhouse (Canada)
* Clifford Glenwood Shull (United States)

Physiology or Medicine|

* Alfred G. Gilman (United States)
* Martin Rodbell (United States)

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* John Harsanyi (United States)
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Japanese Nobel laureates

Chemistry|

* Kenichi Fukui (1981)
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* Koichi Tanaka (2002)
* Osamu Shimomura (2008)
* Ei-ichi Negishi / Akira Suzuki (2010)
* Akira Yoshino (2019)

Literature|

* Yasunari Kawabata (1968)
* Kenzaburō Ōe (1994)

Peace|

* Eisaku Satō (1974)

Physics|

* Hideki Yukawa (1949)
* Sin-Itiro Tomonaga (1965)
* Leo Esaki (1973)
* Masatoshi Koshiba (2002)
* Makoto Kobayashi / Toshihide Maskawa (2008)
* Isamu Akasaki / Hiroshi Amano (2014)
* Takaaki Kajita (2015)

Physiology or Medicine|

* Susumu Tonegawa (1987)
* Shinya Yamanaka (2012)
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