Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe, winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature and a progressive icon who challenged the conformity of modern society, has died at the age of 88, Kodansha reported on Monday.
“He died of old age in the early hours of March 3,” the publisher said in a statement. He indicated that his family had already held the funeral.
Known for his pacifist and anti-nuclear stance, Oe belongs to a generation of writers “deeply wounded” by World War II, “but full of hope for rebirth”.
Born in 1935 Kenzaburo Oe It grows in a wooded valley on the island of Shikoku in western Japan, a remote place he often refers to in his writings as a microcosm of mankind.
Though traumatized by Japan’s surrender after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, Kenzaburo Oe quickly adheres to the democratic principles of the American occupier.
As a teenager, he decides to study French literature at the prestigious University of Tokyo and begins his literary career.
In 1958 Kenzaburo Oe wins the acclaimed Akutagawa Young Author Award for Prey, a book about an African-American airman held captive in a rural Japanese community during World War II.
In the same year, he published his first major novel Uproot Seeds, Shoot Children, a social fable about children in a correctional center in Japan during the war.
Kenzaburo Oe, Periphery Writer
The author decides to stay on the “periphery” and promises not to cooperate “with those in the center or in power.”
The birth in 1963 of a disabled son Hikari (“Light” in Japanese) turns his personal life upside down and gives new impetus to creativity.
“Writing and living with my son intersect, and these two activities can only deepen each other. I told myself that, without a doubt, this is where my imagination can take shape,” he explained. Kenzaburo Oe in one case.
A Personal Question (1964) would be the first novel in a long series of books inspired by his personal life. In it, he recounts the life of a young father who is faced with having a child with a severe disability until he considers killing him.
His Hiroshima Notes (1965) is a collection of victim testimonies dated August 6, 1945. Then, in The Okinawan Notes (1970), he focuses on the tragic fate of this small remote archipelago of Japan, to which he would not be returned by the United States until 1972.
Insulted by Japanese nationalists, Kenzaburo Oe Decades later, he would be accused of defamation for recalling in this essay that scores of civilians were forced to commit suicide by the Japanese military during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. The writer will win the court after a long trial.
In 1994 he won Nobel Prize in Literature for creating “with great poetic force” “an imaginary world in which life and myth condense to form a bewildering portrait of a fragile human situation”, according to the committee.
Shortly after his rejection of the Order of Culture, Japan’s award conferred by the emperor, the country is in turmoil. “I do not recognize any power, any value above democracy,” argued the author, true to his ideals.
Kenzaburo Oe he is survived by three children, including Hikari, a famous composer.
(According to AFP).
my favorite novel
Although Jules Verne excelled primarily for writing novels of scientific anticipation, Around the World in 80 Days is a travel novel full of risk, adventure and humor in which our protagonists overcome all sorts of obstacles to achieve their goal. And between adventure and adventure, we discover how beautiful the world, its countries and the pleasure of travel is. With Eric Garcia, Alberto Isola and Bruno Odar. Adapted by Carmen Salas and directed by Alonso Alegria.
Source: RPP
