Oe, Kenzaburo << oh ay, kehn zah bu roh >> (1935-2023), a Japanese novelist, won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1994. Much of Oe’s fiction is political in tone, emphasizing his country’s search for its cultural roots. He also wrote about the sense of betrayal and alienation many Japanese people felt following Japan’s defeat in World War II (1939-1945).
Oe was born on Jan. 31, 1935, in Shikoku, Japan. He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1959 with a degree in French literature. Oe gained recognition with his earliest works, which explore violence and insanity. These writings created controversy for their unconventional, rough literary style. Among Oe’s early works are the story “Lavish Are the Dead” (1957), written while he was a student, and the novel Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (1958). The short novel Prize Stock (1958) describes the friendship between a Japanese boy and an African American prisoner of war.
Oe’s later writings are dominated by his experiences as the father of a son with brain damage. Many of these intense and painful works reflect the attitudes of postwar Japanese youths who felt themselves culturally adrift. The books include A Personal Matter (1964), Hiroshima Notes (1964, revised 1995), The Silent Cry (1967), and Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age (1984). Some of Oe’s short stories were collected in The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath (1984). Four of his short novels, including Prize Stock, were collected in Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness (1969). Oe also wrote a study of Japanese mythology called M/T (1986). He died on March 3, 2023.
