<div>This classic work of world literature by the 1994 Japanese Nobel laureate is a devastating and moving blend of memoir and fiction. An uncanny blend of the real with the imagined, of memoir with fiction, A Quiet Life is narrated by Ma-chan, a twenty-year-old woman. Her father is a famous and fascinating novelist; her older brother, though severely brain-damaged, possesses an almost magical gift for musical composition; and her mother&rsquo;s life is devoted to the care of them both. Ma-chan and her younger brother find themselves emotionally on the outside of this oddly constructed nuclear family. But when her father accepts a visiting professorship from an American university, Ma-chan finds herself suddenly the head of the household and at the center of family relationships that &ldquo;are movingly illuminated&rdquo; (The New York Times) through Oe&rsquo;s unique and unpredictable genius.</div>

A Quiet Life

<div>From the Nobel Prize&ndash;winning author: &ldquo;One of the great short novels of the 20th century&rdquo; (The Wall Street Journal). Internationally acclaimed as one of the world&rsquo;s most influential writers, Kenzaburo Oe brings to the fore the post-WWII rage and anxiety of a decorous society in this &ldquo;deathly black comedy . . . dripping with nuclear terror&rdquo; (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&rsquo;s Utopian fantasies are shattered when his wife gives birth to what he calls their &ldquo;monster baby.&rdquo; 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&mdash;self-discovery. &ldquo;Very close to a perfect contemporary novel.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times &ldquo;An astonishing novel.&rdquo; &mdash;Mother Jones</div>

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A Personal Matter

<div>The Nobel Prize&ndash;winning &ldquo;master of the bizarre plunges the reader into a world of tortured imagination&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;a supremely gifted writer&rdquo; (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&mdash;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&mdash;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. &ldquo;[A] remarkable book.&rdquo; &mdash;The Washington Post &ldquo;Oe is definitely one of the Modern Masters.&rdquo; &mdash;Seattlepi.com</div>

Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness

<div>Two brothers in post-war Japan experience an ideological conflict when they reunite at their family home in this philosophical novel by a Nobel laureate. The Silent Cry follows two brothers who return to their ancestral home, a village in densely forested Western Japan. After decades of separation, the reunited men are each preoccupied by their own personal crises. One brother grapples with the recent suicide of his dearest friend, the birth of his disabled son, and his wife’s increasing alcoholism. The other brother sets out to incite an uprising among the local youth against the disintegration of the community’s culture and economy due to the imposing franchise of a Korean businessman nicknamed the “Emperor of the Supermarkets.” Both brothers live in the shadow of the mysteries surrounding the untimely deaths of their older brother and younger sister, as well as their great-grandfather’s political heroism. When long-kept family secrets are revealed, the brothers’ strained bond is pushed to its breaking-point and their lives are irrevocably changed . . . Considered Oe’s most essential work by the Nobel Prize committee, The Silent Cry is as powerfully relevant today as it was when first published in 1967. Praise for The Silent Cry “[The Silent Cry] allows us a glimpse of Oe’s narrative mastery.” —Nobel Prize citation “Somehow—and this is what gives his art such unquestionable stature—Oe manages to smuggle a comic thread in all this tragedy.” —Independent (UK) “A new pinnacle in post-war Japanese fiction.” —Yukio Mishima “Oe, in the range of hope and despair he covers, seems to me to have in him a touch of Dostoevsky.” —Henry Miller “Oe is dense, analytical, with a highly modern self-consciousness, though there’s real nostalgia here for the dying traditions of pre-Westernized supermarket culture. A picture of fragmenting identity and social breakdown as brutalizing as the 20th century itself.” —Kirkus Reviews</div>

The Silent Cry

<div>A &ldquo;remarkable collection&rdquo; of insight and inspiration from 20 leaders and thinkers, including Elizabeth Warren, Howard Zinn, and Oliver Stone (Publishers Weekly, starred review). As a kid, Noam Chomsky handed out the Daily Mirror at his uncle&rsquo;s newsstand on 72nd Street, inadvertently finding himself in a buzzing intellectual and political hub for European immigrants in New York. Iranian human rights Nobelist Shirin Ebadi and her husband signed their own legal contract, attempting to restore equality to their marriage after the Iranian Revolution effectively erased the legal rights of women. Elizabeth Warren set out to expose those frauds declaring bankruptcy and taking advantage of the system&mdash;only to discover, in her research, a very different story of hard-working middle-class families facing economic collapse in the absence of a social safety net. While studying at Oxford, a young Tariq Ali made a bet with a friend that he could work the Vietnam War into every single answer on his final exams. In this rousing, thoughtful, often funny, and always inspiring volume, a diverse and impressive group of thinkers reflect on those formative experiences that shaped their own political commitments. A fascinating new window into the revealing links between the personal and the political, Political Awakenings will engage readers across generations. &ldquo;Fascinating.&rdquo; &mdash;Booklist</div>

Kenzaburo Oe
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Books By Kenzaburo Oe (4 Books)

A Quiet Life

A Personal Matter

Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness

The Silent Cry

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© 2024 OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Kenzaburo OeFollow this author

Books By Kenzaburo Oe (4 Books)

A Quiet Life

A Personal Matter

Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness

The Silent Cry

RELATED POSTS ABOUT KENZABURO OE

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More from

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© 2024 OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Kenzaburo Oe
Follow this author