The Novels of Oe Kenzaburo

The Novels of Oe Kenzaburo PDF Author: Yasuko Claremont
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134118341
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
The author's critical study examines the key works of fiction by Oe Kenzaburo – the internationally renowned Japanese writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994.

The Novels of Oe Kenzaburo

The Novels of Oe Kenzaburo PDF Author: Yasuko Claremont
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134118341
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
The author's critical study examines the key works of fiction by Oe Kenzaburo – the internationally renowned Japanese writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994.

Death by Water

Death by Water PDF Author: Kenzaburo Oe
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 0802190871
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 443

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Book Description
Kenzaburo Oe was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for creating "an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today." In Death by Water, his recurring protagonist and literary alter-ego returns to his hometown village in search of a red suitcase fabled to hold documents revealing the details of his father’s death during WWII: details that will serve as the foundation for his new, and final, novel. Since his youth, renowned novelist Kogito Choko planned to fictionalize his father’s fatal drowning in order to fully process the loss. Stricken with guilt and regret over his failure to rescue his father, Choko has long been driven to discover why his father was boating on the river in a torrential storm. Though he remembers overhearing his father and a group of soldiers discussing an insurgent scheme to stage a suicide attack on Emperor Mikado, Choko cannot separate his memories from imagination and his family is hesitant to reveal the entire story. When the contents of the trunk turn out to offer little clarity, Choko abandons the novel in creative despair. Floundering as an artist, he’s haunted by fear that he may never write his tour de force. But when he collaborates with an avant-garde theater troupe dramatizing his early novels, Kogito is revitalized by revisiting his formative work and he finds the will to continue investigating his father’s demise. Diving into the turbulent depths of legacy and mortality, Death by Water is an exquisite examination of resurfacing national and personal trauma, and the ways that storytelling can mend political, social, and familial rifts.

Two Novels

Two Novels PDF Author: Kenzaburō Ōe
Publisher: Foxrock Books
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Two views of a world whose traditional values had been blown away: Seventeen, the story of a lonely boy who turns to a right-wing group for self-esteem, and J, the story of a spoiled young drifter son of a Japanese executive.

The Changeling

The Changeling PDF Author: Kenzaburo Oe
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 0802197981
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
Oe introduces Kogito Choko, a writer in his early sixties, as he rekindles a childhood friendship with his estranged brother-in-law, the renowned filmmaker Goro Hanawa. Goro sends Kogito a trunk of tapes he has recorded of reflections about their friendship, but as Kogito is listening one night, he hears something odd. "I'm going to head over to the Other Side now," Goro says, and then Kogito hears a loud thud. After a moment of silence, Goro's voice continues: "But don't worry, I'm not going to stop communicating with you." Moments later, Kogito's wife rushes in; Goro has jumped to his death. With that, Kogito begins a far-ranging search to understand what drove his brother-in-law to suicide. His quest takes him from the forests of southern Japan to the washed-out streets of Berlin, where Kogito confronts the ghosts from his own past and that of his lifelong, but departed, friend.

Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness

Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness PDF Author: Kenzaburo Oe
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802195431
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
The Nobel Prize–winning “master of the bizarre plunges the reader into a world of tortured imagination” in this four-novella collection (Library Journal). In this startling quartet of his most provocative stories, the multiple prize-winning author of A Personal Matter reaffirms his reputation as “a supremely gifted writer” (The Washington Post). In The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away, a self-absorbed narrator on his deathbed drifts off to the comforting strains of a cantata as he recalls a blistering childhood of militarism, sacrifice, humiliation, and revenge—a tale that is questioned by everyone who knew him. In Prize Stock, winner of the Akutagawa Prize, a black American pilot is downed in a Japanese village during World War II, where the local children see him as some rare find—exotic and forbidden. In Aghwee The Sky Monster, the floating ghost of a baby inexplicably haunts a young man on the first day of his first job. And in the title story, a devoted father believes he is the only link between his mentally challenged son and reality. “[A] remarkable book.” —The Washington Post “Ōe is definitely one of the Modern Masters.” —Seattlepi.com

Hiroshima Notes

Hiroshima Notes PDF Author: Kenzaburō Ōe
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 9780802134646
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
Hiroshima Notes is a powerful statement on the Hiroshima bombing and its terrible legacy by the 1994 Nobel laureate for literature. Oe's account of the lives of the many victims of Hiroshima and the valiant efforts of those who cared for them, both immediately after the atomic blast and in the years that follow, reveals the horrific extent of the devastation. It is a heartrending portrait of a ravaged city -- the "human face" in the midst of nuclear destruction.

Somersault

Somersault PDF Author: Kenzaburo Oe
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 0802195415
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
The first new novel Oe has published since winning the Nobel Prize, Somersault is a magnificent story of the charisma of leaders, the danger of zealotry, and the mystery of faith. A decade before the story opens, two men referred to as the Patron and Guide of mankind were leaders of an influential religious movement. When a radical faction of their followers threatened to unleash an apocalypse, they recanted all of their teachings and abandoned their followers. Now, after ten years of silence, Patron and Guide begin contacting their old followers and reaching out to the public, assisted by a small group of young people who have come to them in recent months. Just as they are beginning this renewed push, the radical faction kidnaps Guide, holding him captive until his health gives out. Patron and a small core of the faithful, including a painter named Kizu who may become the new Guide, move to the mountains to establish the church’s new base, followed by two groups from Patron’s old church: the devout Quiet Women, and the Technicians, who have ties to the old radical faction. The Baby Fireflies, young men from a nearby village, attempt to influence the church with local traditions and military discipline. As planning proceeds for the summer conference that will bring together the faithful and launch the new church in the eyes of the world, the conflicting agendas of these factions threaten to make a mockery of the church’s unity—or something far more dangerous.

Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids

Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids PDF Author: Kenzaburō Ōe
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 9780802134639
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
In this title, a group of delinquent boys are abandoned in a remote village during the Korean war and manage to survive by stealing food and hunting, only to face the possibility of death when the villagers return.

The Pinch Runner Memorandum

The Pinch Runner Memorandum PDF Author: Kenzaburo Oe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317455533
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
This novel offers a contemporary and explosive picture of the nuclear family, which pivots on the bizarre odyssey of a Japanese father and son.

Ōe and Beyond

Ōe and Beyond PDF Author: Stephen Snyder
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824863763
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Are the works of contemporary Japanese novelists, as Nobel Prize winner Oe Kenzaburo has observed, "mere reflections of the vast consumer culture of Tokyo and the subcultures of the world at large"? Or do they contain their own critical components, albeit in altered form? Oe and Beyond surveys the accomplishments of Oe and other writers of the postwar generation while looking further to examine the literary parameters of the "Post-Oe" generation. Despite the unprecedented availability today of the work of many of these writers in excellent English translations, some twenty years have passed since a collection of critical essays has appeared to guide the interested reader through the fascinating world of contemporary Japanese fiction. Oe and Beyond is a sampling of the best research and thinking on the current generation of Japanese writers being done in English. The essays in this volume explore such subjects as the continuing resonances of the atomic bombings; the notion of "transnational subjects"; the question of the "de-canonization" (as well as the "re-canonization") of writers; the construction (and deconstruction) of gender models; the quest for spirituality amid contemporary Japanese consumer affluence; post-modernity and Japanese "infantilism"; the intertwining connections between history, myth-making, and discrimination; and apocalyptic visions of fin de siecle Japan. Contributors pursue various methodological and theoretical approaches to reveal the breadth of scholarship on modern Japanese literature. The essays reflect some of the latest thinking, both Western and Japanese, on such topics as subjectivity, gender, history, modernity, and the postmodern. Oe and Beyond includes essays on Endo Shusaku, Hayashi Kyoko, Kanai Mieko, Kurahashi Yumiko, Murakami Haruki, Murakami Ryu, Nakagami Kenji, Oe Kenzaburo, Ohba Minako, Shimada Masahiko, Takahashi Takako, and Yoshimoto Banana. Contributors: Davinder L. Bhowmik, Philip Gabriel, Van C. Gessel, Adrienne Hurley, Susan J. Napier, Sharalyn Orbaugh, Jay Rubin, Atsuko Sakaki, Ann Sherif, Stephen Snyder, Mark Williams, Eve Zimmerman.