Kenzaburo Oe is a Japanese author known for his haunting works that challenge readers to think critically. His childhood immersed in Japanese military culture and exposure to new experiences influenced his writing. Oe’s work explores war, traditional Japanese values, personal issues, and the divide between rural forest life and urban Japan.
Kenzaburo Oe is a Japanese author who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994. Kenzaburo Oe is well known for his haunting works that challenge readers to think critically about their own lives. Born just six years before the outbreak of World War II, Kenzaburo Oe was deeply moved by the events of the war and his childhood immersed in Japanese military culture. Much of his narrative integrates the small community in which he grew up, the clash of town and country, a mystical cosmology and a unique mythology. He also challenges many traditional Japanese values.
Kenzaburo Oe was born in the forests of Shikoku in 1935, to a family that had traditionally lived a small village life for hundreds of years. At a time when many young Japanese began to leave their homes for Tokyo, Oe’s family continued to live an uninterrupted rural life. Oe’s family contained many storytellers, who told the boy fantastic legends about Japan, many of which were incorporated into Kenzaburo Oe’s later work.
During World War II, Kenzaburo Oe was exposed to a new set of myths and legends about Japanese national history and Japanese military tradition. At the end of the war, Kenzaburo Oe was exposed to many new experiences and different value systems, which prompted him to envisage a life radically different from the one his family had lived for generations. At the age of 18, Kenzaburo Oe decided to go to Tokyo as a student of French literature, as he felt Tokyo offered him more opportunities for growth. Consequently, his work is strongly influenced by the writing of French philosophers.
Kenzaburo Oe began writing while at the University of Tokyo, publishing his first short story, The Catch, in 1958 and winning the prestigious Akutagawa Prize. He also wrote his first novel, Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, exploring war and its influence on Japanese youth. Oe also wrote about the war in Hiroshima Notes a long and highly critical essay published in 1965. In 1957 and 1961, respectively, Kenzaburo Oe wrote Lavish are the Dead and The Youth Who Came Late, books about student life in Tokyo and the changes in traditional values Japanese that the war had brought.
In the mid-1960s, Kenzaburo Oe’s work took a divergent path due to immense changes in his personal life. In the early 1960s, his first child, Hikari, was born. The child was severely handicapped and Kenzaburo Oe struggled with his son and their relationship. In a radical departure from traditional Japanese values regarding personal issues, Kenzaburo Oe wrote several books about Hikari and Oe’s emotions surrounding his son, including A Personal Matter (1964) and Teach Us to Outgrow our Madness (1969). Kenzaburo Oe’s books on Hikari read as intensely personal explorations of emotions and experiences and are sometimes uncomfortable for the reader. In My Diluged Child (1973), Oe wrestles with ideas surrounding communicating with the handicapped and how they can be overcome, making the book a touchstone for many in the disability rights movement.
Kenzaburo Oe was also fascinated by the divide between rural forest life and the urban world of Japan. He has written a number of books exploring this divide and integrating his personal mythology. The books read like strange anthropological explorations of a hidden world, as his characters struggle with their identities and the spirit of place. Some of Kenzaburo Oe’s forest novels are very playful, incorporating the history, reality, and myths that humans construct, while others are more serious explorations of the human condition. These novels include The Silent Cry (1961), Letters to my Sweet Bygone Years (1987), M/T and the Wonders of the Forest (1986) and The Flaming Green Tree (1995).
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