Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use American English Template:Infobox writer

File:Oe kenzaburo japaninstitut koeln 041108.jpg
Ōe at the Japanisches Kulturinstitut in Cologne on 11 April 2008

Template:Nihongo 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".<ref name="shimbun2008">"Oe, Pamuk: World needs imagination" Template:Webarchive, Yomiuri.co.jp; 18 May 2008.</ref>

Early life and educationEdit

Ōe was born in Template:Nihongo, a village now in Uchiko, Ehime Prefecture, on Shikoku.<ref name="weston">Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref name="The Nobel Prize" /><ref name="weston" /> His father, Kōtare Ōe, had a bark-stripping business; the bark was used to make paper currency.<ref name="weston" /> 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.<ref name="The Nobel Prize" />

Ōe received the first ten years of his education in local public schools.<ref name="The Georgia Review 1995" /> 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.<ref name="weston" /> After the war, he realized he had been taught lies and felt betrayed. This sense of betrayal later appeared in his writing.<ref name="weston"/>

Ōe attended high school in Matsuyama from 1951 to 1953, where he excelled as a student.<ref name="The Georgia Review 1995" /><ref name="weston" /> At the age of 18, he made his first trip to Tokyo, where he studied at a prep school (yobikō) for one year.<ref name="The Georgia Review 1995" /><ref name="The Nobel Prize" /> The following year, he began studying French Literature at the University of Tokyo with Professor Kazuo Watanabe, a specialist on François Rabelais.<ref name="The Nobel Prize">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

CareerEdit

Ōe began publishing stories in 1957, while still a student, strongly influenced by contemporary writing in France and the United States.<ref name="The Nobel Prize" /> He was particularly influenced by the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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.<ref name="Benoza 2023">Template:Cite news</ref> His early works were set in his own university milieu.<ref name="wilson12">Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1958, his short story "Shiiku" (飼育) was awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize.<ref name="Benoza 2023" /> 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.<ref name="wilson12" /> 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.<ref name="wilson12" /> 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref name="Wilson 1986">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

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)".<ref>Ōe, Ōe Kenzaburō Zensakuhin, Vol. 2 (Supplement No. 3). p. 16.</ref> 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.<ref name="Wilson 1986" />Template:Rp 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."<ref name="Wilson 1986" />Template:Rp

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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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,<ref name="weston" /> and he was later physically assaulted by an angry right-winger while giving a speech at the University of Tokyo.<ref name="Jaggi">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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.<ref name="Wilson 1986" />Template:Rp Ōe's admission that Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is his favorite book can be said to find a context in this period.<ref>Theroux, Paul. "Speaking of Books: Creative Dissertating; Creative Dissertating", nytimes.com, 8 February 1970.</ref>

Influence of HikariEdit

File:The Healing Family Kenzaburo Oe.jpg
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.<ref>Sobsey, Richard Template:Webarchive. "Hikari Finds His Voice," Template:Webarchive Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC), produced by Compassionate Healthcare Network (CHN). July 1995.</ref>

In Ōe's 1964 book, A Personal Matter, the writer describes the psychological trauma involved in accepting his brain-damaged son into his life.<ref name="The Nobel Prize" /> 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

2006 to 2008Edit

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."<ref name="Onishi 2008">Template:Cite news</ref>

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.<ref name="The Saturday Profile">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Death by Water was published in 2009.

2013Edit

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 mentally 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.<ref name="latest">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

ActivismEdit

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).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref name="Jaggi" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

File:手話通訳 (8930900696).jpg
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.<ref>Oe, K., & Chomsky, N. (2002). An Exchange on Current Affairs. World Literature Today,76(2), 29. {{#invoke:doi|main}} 29 April 2019</ref> Ōe later said in an interview, "I've always respected Chomsky, but I respected him even more after he told me that."<ref name="auto">Template:Cite news</ref>

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."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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.<ref>http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130915p2g00m0dm013000c.html Template:Webarchive Mainichi Daily News, 15 September 2013, "Some 8,000 March in Tokyo Against Restart of Any Nuclear Power Plants" (accessed 10 November 2013)</ref> Ōe also criticized moves to amend Article 9 of the Constitution, which forever renounces war.<ref>http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201305180039 Template:Webarchive Asahi Shumbun, 18 May 2013, "Writer Oe calls for stopping moves to revise Constitution" (accessed 9 November 2013)</ref>

In 2015, Ōe stated that he believed that the Japanese government had not adequately acknowledged or apologized for the comfort women issue.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Personal life and deathEdit

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.<ref name="auto"/><ref name="Jaggi" />

Ōe lived in Tokyo and had three children.<ref name="Lewis 2023" /> In 1963, his eldest son, Hikari, was born with a brain hernia.<ref name="BBC News 2023" /> Ōe initially struggled to accept his son's condition, which required surgery which would leave him with learning disabilities for life.<ref name="Lewis 2023" /> Hikari lived with Kenzaburō and Yukari until he was middle-aged, and often composed music in the same room where his father was writing.<ref name="Lewis 2023" />

Ōe died on 3 March 2023 at the age of 88, reportedly due to old age.<ref name="Lewis 2023">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="BBC News 2023">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Benoza 2023" />

HonorsEdit

Nobel Prize in Literature and Japan's Order of CultureEdit

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.<ref name="weston" />

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.<ref name="nyt1994" /> He told The New York Times that his writing was ultimately focused on "the dignity of human beings."<ref name="nyt1994">Template:Cite news</ref>

Major awardsEdit

  • Tokyo University May Festival Prize, 1957.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Eponymous literary prizeEdit

In 2005, the Kenzaburō Ōe Prize was established by publisher Kodansha to promote Japanese literary novels internationally,<ref name="The Japan Times 2005">Template:Cite news</ref> with the first prize awarded in 2007.<ref name="Kodansha">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The winning work was selected solely by Ōe,<ref name="The Japan Times 2005" /> to be translated into English, French, or German, and published worldwide.<ref name="Kodansha" />

Selected worksEdit

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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The few translations have often appeared after a marked lag in time.<ref name=Tayler>Template:Cite news</ref> Works of his have also been translated into Chinese, French, and German.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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 <ref name="Benoza 2023" />
奇妙な仕事
Kimyō na shigoto
The Strange Work Short novel awarded May Festival Prize by University of Tokyo newspaper <ref name="Asahi Shimbun 2023">Template:Cite news</ref>
飼育
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.

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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 <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Sakurai 1984" />
芽むしり仔撃ち
Memushiri kōchi
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids One of his earliest novellas, translated in 1995 <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
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. <ref name="Goff 1997">Template:Cite journal</ref>
1963 叫び声
Sakebigoe
Outcries Untranslated <ref name="Reinsma 1998">Template:Cite journal</ref>
性的人間
Seiteki ningen
J (published title)

Sexual Humans (literal translation)

Short story translated by Luk Van Haute in 1996 <ref name="Goff 1997" />
1964 空の怪物アグイー
Sora no kaibutsu Aguī
Aghwee the Sky Monster Short story translated by John Nathan. <ref name="Wilson 1981">Template:Cite journal</ref>
個人的な体験
Kojinteki na taiken
A Personal Matter Awarded the Shinchosha Literary Prize. Translated by John Nathan. <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
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 <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
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 <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Sakurai 1984">Template:Cite journal</ref>
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 <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Sakurai 1984" />
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 <ref name="Onishi 2008" />
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" <ref name="Wilson 1981" />
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 <ref name="Sakurai 1984" /><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
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. citation CitationClass=web

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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 <ref name="The Georgia Review 1995">Template:Cite journal</ref>
1979 同時代ゲーム
Dōjidai gēmu
The Game of Contemporaneity Untranslated <ref name="Napier 1993">Template:Cite journal</ref>
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. <ref name="Yoshida 1995">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation CitationClass=web

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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. citation CitationClass=web

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1985 河馬に嚙まれる
Kaba ni kamareru
Bitten by a Hippopotamus Eight short stories, loosely linked <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
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 <ref name="Yoshida 1995" /><ref name="Napier 1993" />
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 <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
1988 「最後の小説」
Saigo no shōsetsu
The Last Novel Collection of essays <ref name="The Georgia Review 1995" />
1989 人生の親戚
Jinsei no shinseki
An Echo of Heaven (published title)

Relatives of Life (literal translation)

Translated by Margaret Mitsutani <ref name="Reinsma 1998" />
1990 治療塔
Chiryō tō
Towers of Healing Novel first serialized in Hermes magazine; first work of science fiction <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
静かな生活
Shizuka na seikatsu
A Quiet Life Translated by Kunioki Yanagishita & William Wetherall <ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
1991 治療塔惑星
Chiryō tō wakusei
Planet of the Healing Tower Science fiction novel paired with Chiryō tō <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
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 <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
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) <ref name="Yoshida 1995" />
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) <ref name="Yoshida 1995" />
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) <ref name="Yoshida 1995" />
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. citation CitationClass=web

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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. <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
1999 宙返り
Chūgaeri
Somersault Translated by Philip Gabriel <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
2000 取り替え子 (チェンジリング)
Torikae ko (Chenjiringu)
The Changeling Translated by Deborah Boliver Boehm <ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
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 <ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
2002 憂い顔の童子
Urei gao no dōji
Gloomy Faced Child Novel <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
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. <ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
2009 水死
Sui shi
Death by Water Translated by Deborah Boliver Boehm <ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
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. <ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

See alsoEdit

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NotesEdit

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ReferencesEdit

Further readingEdit

External linksEdit

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Template:Kenzaburō Ōe Template:Nobel Prize in Literature Laureates 1976-2000 Template:1994 Nobel Prize winners Template:Japanese Nobel laureates Template:Akutagawa Prize winners Template:Mondello Prize Template:Authority control