Kenzaburo Oe (大江 健三郎 Ōe Kenzaburō, born January 31, 1935) is a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994.

Born in a village in Shikoku, Japan, he moved to Tokyo at age eighteen to study French literature at the University of Tokyo and began writing while still a student in 1957, strongly influenced by contemporary writing in France and the United States.

Oe, whose son Hikari is mentally disabled, often produces deeply personal, semi-autobiographical work; for example, 1964's A Personal Matter (個人的な体験, Kojinteki na taiken) is the story of a man who must come to terms with his son's mental disability.

Works translated into English

• Lavish Are The Dead (死者の奢り, Shisha no ogori, 1957)
• Someone Else's Feet (他人の足, Tanin no ashi, 1957)
• Prize Stock (Shiiku, 1957, also translated as The Catch)
• Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (芽むしり仔撃ち, Memushiri kōchi, 1958)
• Seventeen (セヴンティーン, Sevuntiin, 1961)
• A Personal Matter (個人的な体験, Kojinteki na taiken, 1964)
• Aghwee the Sky Monster (空の怪物アグイー, Sora no kaibutsu Aguii, 1964)
• Hiroshima Notes (ヒロシマ・ノート, Hiroshima nōto, 1965)
• The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away (1972)
• The Silent Cry (万延元年のフットボール, Man'en gan'nen no futtobōru, 1967)
• Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness (我らの狂気を生き延びる道を教えよ, Warera no kyōki wo ikinobiru michi wo oshieyo, 1969)
• The Pinch Runner Memorandum (ピンチランナー調書, Pinchi ran'naa chōsho, 1976)
• Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! (新しい人よ、眼ざめよ Atarashii hito yo mezameyo, 1983)
• Japan's Dual Identity: A Writer's Dilemma (1988)
• An Echo of Heaven (Jinsei no shinseki, 1989)
• A Quiet Life (静かな生活, Shizuka na seikatsu, 1990)
• Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself: The Nobel Prize Speech and Other Lectures (1995)
• A Healing Family (廻復する家族, Kaifukusuru kazoku, 1995)
• Somersault (宙返り, Chūgaeri, 1999)

ed: The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath

External links

• Nobel e-Museum Biography
• Nobel Prize Lecture
• Biography and booklist