The Novels of Oe Kenzaburo (Paperback)

e Kenzabur was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994. This critical study examines e s entire career from 1957 2006 and includes chapters on e s later novels not published in English. Through close readings at different points in e s career Yasuko Claremont establishes the spiritual path that he has taken in its three major phrases of nihilism, atonement, and salvation, all highlighted against a background of violence and suicidal despair that saturate his pages. e uses myth in two distinct ways: to link mankind to the archetypal past, and as a critique of contemporary society. Equally, he depicts the great themes of redemption and salvation on two levels: that of the individual atoning for a particular act, and on a universal level of self-abnegation, dying for others. In the end it is e s ethical concerns that win out, as he turns to the children, the inheritors of the future, new men in a new age who will have the power and desire to redress the ills besetting the world today. Essentially, e is a moralist, a novelist of ideas whose fiction is densely packed with references from Western thought and poetry.

This book is an important read for scholars of e Kenzabur s work and those studying Japanese Literature and culture more generally.