Download or read book Death by Water written by Kenzaburo Oe and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2015-10-06 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Novels of Oe Kenzaburo written by Yasuko Claremont and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-12 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Two Novels written by Kenzaburō Ōe and published by Foxrock Books. This book was released on 1996 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Changeling written by Kenzaburo Oe and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-02-08 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness written by Kenzaburo Oe and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2011-05-16 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book The Marginal World of Oe Kenzaburo A Study of Themes and Techniques written by Michiko N. Wilson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full-length book devoted to Japan's 1994 Nobel Laureate, The Marginal World of Kenzaburo Ôe introduces the literary universe bursting with the explosive energies of Bakhtinian grotesque realism. In its center stands the "idiot son," a trickster and soulful healer, unknowingly thrown into the world of myth-making and history. The diverse voices of Ôe's characters resonate with one another within and between reinvented texts as the book's analysis flow into the very pores and veins of his masterful writing.
Download or read book Somersault written by Kenzaburo Oe and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-05-16 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Hiroshima Notes written by Kenzaburō Ōe and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Nip the Buds Shoot the Kids written by Kenzaburō Ōe and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book e and Beyond written by Stephen Snyder and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1999-04-01 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book A Personal Matter written by Kenzaburo Oe and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-05-16 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Nobel Prize–winning author: “One of the great short novels of the 20th century” (The Wall Street Journal). Internationally acclaimed as one of the world’s most influential writers, Kenzaburō Ōe brings to the fore the post-WWII rage and anxiety of a decorous society in this “deathly black comedy . . . dripping with nuclear terror” (The Japan Times). Bird is an antisocial twenty-seven-year-old intellectual hanging on to a failing marriage with whiskey. He dreams of going to Africa where the sky sprawls with possibilities. Then, as though walloped by a massive invisible fist, Bird’s Utopian fantasies are shattered when his wife gives birth to what he calls their “monster baby.” Now, Bird is left with one question: How can he and his wife spend the rest of their lives with this damaged thing clinging to their backs? As shameful, disgraceful, and unthinkable a desire as it is, Bird has an answer. Not sealed. Not just yet. Not before Bird flees on a bender of indiscriminate (and frustratingly impotent) sex, hard liquor, self-delusion, and most terrifying of all—self-discovery. “Very close to a perfect contemporary novel.” —The New York Times “An astonishing novel.” —Mother Jones
Download or read book The Pinch Runner Memorandum written by Kenzaburo Oe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-20 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This novel offers a contemporary and explosive picture of the nuclear family, which pivots on the bizarre odyssey of a Japanese father and son.
Download or read book Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age written by Kenzaburo Oe and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2003-03-22 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wise and illuminating, Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! is a masterpiece from one of the world's finest writers, Kenzaburo Oe -- winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. K is a famous writer living in Tokyo with his wife and three children, one of whom is mentally disabled. K's wife confronts him with the information that this child, Eeyore, has been doing disturbing things -- behaving aggressively, asserting that he's dead, even brandishing a knife at his mother -- and K, given to retreating from reality into abstraction, looks for answers in his lifelong love of William Blake's poetry. As K struggles to understand his family and assess his responsibilities within it, he must also reevaluate himself -- his relationship with his own father, the political stances he has taken, the duty of artists and writers in society. A remarkable portrait of the inexpressible bond between this father and his damaged son, Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! is the work of an unparalleled writer at his sparkling best.
Download or read book A Personal Matter written by Kenzaburō Ōe and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 1969 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First pub. 1964. Author's most dramatic work, won him the prestigious Shincho Literary Prize. In the novel the narrator tells how he responds to the birth and problems posed by his handicapped child. Recipient of the 1994 Nobel prize.
Download or read book The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath written by Kenzaburō Ōe and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edited by one of Japan's leading and internationally acclaimed writers, this collection of short stories was compiled to mark the fortieth anniversary of the August 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here some of Japan's best and most representative writers chronicle and re-create the impact of this tragedy on the daily lives of peasants, city professionals, artists, children, and families. From the "crazy" iris that grows out of season to the artist who no longer paints in color, the simple details described in these superbly crafted stories testify to the enormity of change in Japanese life, as well as in the future of our civilization. Included are "The Crazy Iris" by Masuji Ibuse, "Summer Flower" by Tamiki Hara, "The Land of Heart's Desire" by Tamiki Hara, "Human Ashes" by Katsuzo Oda, "Fireflies" by Yoka Ota, "The Colorless Paintings" by Ineko Sata, "The Empty Can" by Kyoko Hayashi, "The House of Hands" by Mitsuharu Inoue, and "The Rite" by Hiroko Takenishi.
Download or read book ME A Novel written by Tomoyuki Hoshino and published by Akashic Books. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Hoshino's dystopia, identities are fluid and any one is as good as another. . .Hoshino's ambitious novel is pleasingly uncomfortable." --Publishers Weekly "Hoshino's latest-in-translation (rendered by De Wolf) begins as black comedy and devolves into an antisolipsistic treatise on the impossibility of individual identity." --Booklist Online "Part existential fable, part 'Night of the Living Dead,' Mr. Hoshino's inventive novel, accessibly translated by Charles De Wolf, paints a nightmare vision of Japan's rootless millennials, who work grinding dead-end jobs that leave them little time for family or individual passions...At first Hitoshi and his fellow MEs are happy to band together against an uncaring world. But the camaraderie doesn't last, since every time one reveals a character flaw the others take it as an indictment of themselves. As the MEs' failures and weaknesses become intolerably magnified onto the 'living but useless rabble' they're gripped by a suicidal impulse that unleashes a crazed murder spree. The frenetic, knife-wielding finale reaches its climax in--a McDonald's, of course. None of them can think of any place else to eat." --Wall Street Journal, included in Best New Fiction column "A Kafkaesque journey of a lonely narrator being absorbed by an impersonal system." --Los Angeles Review of Books "The imaginative story of a rather unimaginative camera salesman, ME features Hitoshi Nagano; his troubles begin with his impulsive theft of a cell phone from another customer at a McDonalds. They end with a post-apocalyptic future for everyone in Japan." --New York Journal of Books "[Some passages] surpass even Kobo Abe. . .The author has leaped to a higher level." --Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel Prize-winning author of The Silent Cry, from the afterword With an afterword by Kenzaburō Ōe. Translated from Japanese by Charles De Wolf. This novel centers on the "It's me" telephone scam--often targeting the elderly--that has escalated in Japan in recent years. Typically, the caller identifies himself only by saying, "Hey, it's me," and goes on to claim in great distress that he's been in an accident or lost some money with which he was entrusted at work, etc., and needs funds wired to his account right away. ME's narrator is a nondescript young Tokyoite named Hitoshi Nagano who, on a whim, takes home a cell phone that a young man named Daiki Hiyama accidentally put on Hitoshi's tray at McDonald's. Hitoshi uses the phone to call Daiki's mother, pretending he is Daiki, and convinces her to wire him 900,000 yen. Three days later, Hitoshi returns home from work to discover Daiki's mother there in his apartment, and she seems to truly believe Hitoshi is her son. Even more bizarre, Hitoshi discovers his own parents now treat him as a stranger; they, too, have a "me" living with them as Hitoshi. At a loss for what else to do, Hitoshi begins living as Daiki, and no one seems to bat an eye. In a brilliant probing of identity, and employing a highly original style that subverts standard narrative forms, Tomoyuki Hoshino elevates what might have been a commonplace crime story to an occasion for philosophical reflection. In the process, he offers profound insights into the state of contemporary Japanese society. Charles De Wolf, PhD, professor emeritus, Keio University, is a linguist by training, though his first love was literature. Multilingual, he has spent most of his life in East Asia and is a citizen of Japan. His translations include Mandarins, a selection of short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (Archipelago Books) and collections of folktales from Konjaku Monogatari-shu. He has written extensively about The Tale of Genji; and is currently working on his own translation of the work.
Download or read book Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness written by Kenzaburo Oe and published by Marion Boyars Publishers. This book was released on 1977 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
