Kenzaburō Ōe

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Kenzaburō Ōe ( Language Salt , 2005)

Kenzaburō Ōe ( Japanese 大江 健 三郎 , Ōe Kenzaburō ; born January 31, 1935 in Ōse (today: Uchiko ), Ehime Prefecture ) is a Japanese writer . In his home country he is one of the most important writers of his generation. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994 .

Life

Kenzaburō Ōe at a reading in Cologne, 2008

education

Kenzaburō Ōe was born in 1935 as the fifth of seven children in the village of Ōse (today: Uchiko ) on Shikoku . The surroundings of Ōse, especially the nearby forest and the alleys and house canyons of the village found their way into his later literary work. From 1941 on he attended primary school there, while the war was raging in the Pacific . In 1947, the year the Japanese Constitution came into effect, Ōe continued his academic career at Ōse Middle School and three years later at Uchiko High School in Ehime Prefecture. In the following year, 1951, he switched to Matsuyama High School because of bullying. The experiences that led to the change of school, Ōe processed in the story Tears off the buds ... During his high school days he read Japanese writers such as Ishikawa Jun , Kobayashi Hideo and others. a .; he published his first poems and essays in the school newspaper Shōjō ( 掌上 ), on which he worked as an editor.

In 1953, Ōe moved to Tokyo. He attended a preparatory school for a year and enrolled in 1954 at the University of Tokyo for a Studium generale . For the student theater he wrote the plays Ama no nageki ( 天 の 嘆 き ) and Natsu no kyūka ( 夏 の 休 暇 ). For Kazan ( 火山 ), which he published in the faculty magazine, he received the Ichō-Namiki Prize ( 銀杏 並 樹 文学 賞 ). During his student days Ōe dealt with Pascal , Camus , Faulkner , Norman Mailer , Abe Kōbō and especially with Sartre . From 1956 he studied French literature a. a. at Watanabe Kazuo. When he started studying, he began to read Sartre in the original French. In the same year, Ōe wrote the play Shi'nin ni kuchi nashi ( 死人 に 口 な し ) and the play Kemonotachi no koe ( 獣 た ち の 声 ). He also took part in the protest demonstration against the expansion of the military Tachikawa airfield ( 立 川 飛行 場 Tachikawa Hikōjō ).

In 1957, Ōe published the novel Kimyō na shigoto ( 奇妙 な 仕事 ) in the Tokyo Daigaku Shimbun , which was highly praised by the literary critic Ken Hirano in the Mainichi Shimbun . Then Ōe made his debut in the literary magazine Bungakukai as a student writer with Shisha no ogori ( 死者 の 奢 り ) in the same year . With this work, Ōe was also a candidate for the renowned Akutagawa Prize , but although Kawabata Yasunari , Inoue Yasushi and Funabashi Seiichi spoke out in favor of him, Takeshi Kaikō was awarded in 1957 .

Akutagawa Prize Winner

Barely a year later, in 1958, after Ōe first published his Chōhen Shōsetsu (novel) Tears the Buds off ( 芽 む し り 仔 撃 ち , Me mushiri kōuchi ), at the age of 23 he received the Akutagawa Prize for Der Fang ( 飼育 , Shiiku ) . At this point in time, Ōe was the youngest Akutagawa winner, along with Shintarō Ishihara , who had also been awarded at the age of 23 in 1956.

Like Günter Grass , Ōe is a writer who is socio-politically committed and takes a stand. So he joined in 1958 a. a. with colleagues such as Shintarō Ishihara, Etō Jun , Tanikawa Shuntarō , Shūji Terayama , Asari Keita , Ei Rokusuke , Toshirō Mayuzumi and Fukuda Yoshiyuki on the Society of Young Japan ( 若 い 日本 の 会 , Wakai nihon no kai ). As part of the student movement in the 1960s, the group protested against the security treaty between Japan and the United States .

In 1959 he finished his studies with a thesis on the image in Sartre's novel . He met the Japanese composer Tōru Takemitsu and one year later, in 1960, he married Yukari Itami, the sister of his school friend Jūzō Itami , with whom he remained close friends until his suicide.

In 1961, Ōe published a collection of writings on politics and sexuality ( 政治 と 性 ) under the title Seventeen in the January and February issues of the literary magazine Bungakukai . In these writings Ōe refers to the 17-year-old right-wing extremist assassin Yamaguchi Otoya , who killed the left-wing politician Asanuma Inejirō with a short sword during an election campaign in 1960 . Ōe portrays the perpetrator as a prototypical model of a right-wing youth who are intoxicated by politics as well as sexual debauchery. Similar to Ōe's fellow writer Shichirō Fukazawa, Ōe received threats from right-wing groups through this publication. A year earlier, in 1960, Fukazawa had in publishing Chūōkōron his work Furyu mutan ( 風流夢譚 , such as: history of a dream of regal sophistication ) published, in which he a dream of the storming of the Imperial Palace and the beheading of Tennō and the imperial family portrays through the left. The publication not only led to great outrage at the imperial court and the ultra-nationalists, it also led to another 17-year-old right-wing youth breaking into the house of the publishing director Shimanaka Hōji , killing a servant and seriously injuring Shimanaka's wife. These circumstances and the threats are also the reason why Ōe has not yet published these writings as a separate book. In 1963, Ōe's son, Hikari, was born with a mental handicap due to the deformation of his skull. The peculiar portrayal of the curse of being confronted with the birth of a mentally handicapped child in a post-war society and the writing about the desperate resistance to such a society brought about a turning point in Ōes's literary work. For the novel, a personal experience ( 個人 的 な 体 験 ), created in this context , he received the Shinchōsha Literature Prize in 1964 . In the same year he began to publish his experiences from several visits to Hiroshima and the participation in the congress for a ban on hydrogen bombs as Hiroshima Notes ( ヒ ロ シ マ ・ ノ ー ト , Hiroshima noto ).

After Ōe studied Hiroshima, Okinawa caught his attention. The archipelago was independent until the Meiji Restoration and did not belong to Japan. During the Second World War , Japan fought in the Battle of Okinawa for the first time and only in Okinawa on its own territory against the Allies. In his Okinawa notes, Ōe dealt with two socio-politically explosive topics: on the one hand with the effects of the American occupation and the establishment of a military base on Okinawa, and on the other hand with the traditions of the inhabitants, especially before Okinawa lost its sovereignty with the Meiji Restoration . The publication of his Okinawa notes later earned Ōe and the publisher a lawsuit and lawsuit in 2005. Supplemented by the consideration of the culture of the Korean minority in Japan , contrary to the majority opinion, Ōe came to an appreciation of the "marginal cultures" in Japan.

Nobel Prize winners and other work

Kenzaburō Ōe (2012)

Referring back to Bakhtin , Der stumme Schrei was created in 1967 , in which Ōe combined myth and history with the present. The silent scream (also published in Germany under the title: The Nedokoro Brothers ) is a complex and multi-layered work, in which Ōe bundles the themes of previous works around the protagonists Mitsusaburō and Takashi Nedokoro and as a narrative layer about historical events around a failed peasant uprising of 1860 ( 万 延 元年 , Man'en era) in a village in Shikoku. Mitsusaburō, the father of a mentally handicapped child, marked by the suicide of a politically active friend, sets off to his home village to find out his origins. Parallel to the peasant uprising of 1860, which was led by his grandfather at the time, Mitsusaburō's brother Takashi incited the village population to revolt against an exploitative supermarket owner. The silent cry appeared around 100 years after these historic events at a time when civil protests were forming in Japan against the extension of the security treaty between America and Japan (1960). For the novel, Ōe was the youngest recipient of the Tanizaki Jun'ichirō Prize.

After The Silent Scream , Ōe dealt with two lines of thought in his work: On the one hand, he wrote some works that deal with life with his disabled son Hikari: A personal experience was first followed by わ れ ら の 狂 気 を 生 き 延 び る 道 を 教 え よ ( English Teach Us to Outgrow our Madness ) (1969). With 新 し い 人 よ 眼 ざ め よ (English Rouse Up, O, Young Men of the New Age! ) (1983), a description of the development of his son from toddler to young man, this occupation came to a preliminary conclusion. On the other hand, Ōe dealt with the myths and history of his rural birthplace. In addition to The Dumb Scream , the novel M / T と 森 の フ シ ギ の 物語 ( M / T and the Wonders of the Forest ) (1986) and the trilogy Green Tree in Flames (1993-1995) can be mentioned.

In 1994 Ōe was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his work. In 1995 the autobiographical work was published with the title 恢復 す る 家族 ( Kaifukusuru kazoku , English A Healing Family ). Ōe went on several trips abroad; from 1999 to 2000 he was the Samuel Fischer visiting professor for literature at the Free University of Berlin .

During the trial against him and the publisher from August 2005 to March 2008, Ōe did not write much. Only after the trial was over did e get creative again and start writing a novel about a character based on his father. The novel was published in 2009 under the title 水 死 ( Suishi ), the German translation with the title Der nasse Tod took place in 2018.

Ōe continued to write books even in old age. In 2013 his novel 晩 年 様 式 集 （イ ン ・ レ イ ト ・ ス タ イ ル） (English In Late Style ) was published. In 2014 the autobiographical Kaifukusuru kazoku from 1995 was published in German translation under the title Light shines on my roof: the story of my family .

Private

The writer lives with his family in Tokyo's Seijō ( Setagaya ) district. In 2006 the Kōdansha publishing house set up the Ōe Kenzaburō Prize for young writers.

Political beliefs

Ōe is committed to post-war democracy ( 戦 後 民主主義 , Sengo minshushugi ) and he therefore takes a critical stand against nationalism and especially the Japanese Tennō system. In lectures and essays he explicitly refers to the controversial Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution , which he understands as a pacifist and from which his rejection of nuclear weapons as well as the Japanese self-defense forces results. In his 1994 speech on the occasion of the awarding of the Nobel Prize, he refers to the Danish Romanist Kristoffer Nyrop and his statement that anyone who does not raise an objection / protest (against the war) is complicit. The objection, or rather the protest, is the concept that Ōe refers to.

Ōe is one of the prominent supporters of the Sayōnara Genpatsu Senmannin Akushon campaign (“ Bye bye nuclear power - 10,000,000 people”), which calls for demonstrations and a collection of signatures for Japan to phase out nuclear power after the Fukushima nuclear disaster .

Lawsuit and trial

From August 2005 to March 2008, the court in Osaka tried a lawsuit against Ōe Kenzaburō and the publisher Iwanami Shoten regarding the battle for Okinawa under file number 2005-WA-7696 ( 大江健三郎 ・ 岩 波 書店 沖 縄 戦 裁判 , Ōe Kenzaburō Iwanami Shoten Okinawasen Saiban ). The lawsuit was brought by the former commanders of the Japanese troops in Okinawa (today: Zamami-jima ), Umezawa Yutaka and Akamatsu Yositsugu, as well as relatives of fallen soldiers for defamation against the publisher and against the person Ōe. The plaintiffs demanded damages and the suspension of various publications by the publisher, including in particular Ōes Okinawa Notes published in 1970 ( 沖 縄 ノ ー ト , Okinawa noto ). The lawsuit was dismissed in 2008.

Awards (selection)

plant

Prose (selection)

  • 1957 Shisha no ogori ( 死者 の 奢 り ), "Pride of the Dead"
    • Short prose. Translated by Margarete Donath and Itsuko Gelbrich, Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1994, ISBN 3-596-12866-8 . (FiTa 12866)
  • 1958 Shiiku ( 飼育 ), "The Catch"
    • Short prose. Translated by Tatsuji Iwabuchi. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1994, ISBN 3-518-22178-7 . (BS 1178)
  • 1958 Fui no oshi ( 不意 の お し ), "And suddenly mute"
    • Narrative. Translated by Jürgen Berndt and Eiko Saitō-Berndt. In: Jürgen Berndt (Ed.): Dreams from ten nights. Modern Japanese stories. Theseus-Verlag, Munich 1992, pp. 563-579, ISBN 3-85936-057-4 .
  • 1958 Me mushiri kōuchi ( 芽 む し り 仔 撃 ち ), "Tears off the buds"
  • 1961 Seventeen ( セ ヴ ン テ ィ ー ン , sebuntīn )
  • 1963 Keirō shūkan ( 敬老 週 間 ), "Old Age Week"
    • Translated by Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit. In: Insel Verlag, Insel Almanach to 1995. Frankfurt a. M., Leipzig: Insel Verlag 1995, pp. 9-27
  • 1964 Sora no kaibutsu Aguī ( 空 の 怪物 ア グ イ ー ), "Agui, the sky monster"
    • Translated from English by Ingrid Rönsch. In: The clever rain tree. Four stories. Berlin: Volk und Welt 1994, pp. 151-200.
  • 1964 Kojinteki na taiken ( 個人 的 な 体 験 ), " A personal experience "
    • Translated by Siegfried Schaarschmidt . Frankfurt a. M .: Suhrkamp Verlag 1994, ISBN 3-518-03771-4
      Ōe, whose son Ōe Hikari is an autistic savant in the field of music, often writes very personal, semi-autobiographical works; One personal experience (1964), for example, is about the story of a man who, after giving birth to a son with an intellectual disability, initially escapes into escapades.
  • 1964 Hiroshima noto ( 広 島 ノ ー ト ), "Hiroshima Notes"
  • 1967 Manen started no Futobōru ( 万 延 元年 の フ ッ ト ボ ー ル ), "The silent scream", also: The Nedokoro brothers
    • The silent scream. Translated from English by Ingrid and Rainer Rönsch. Frankfurt a. M .: Fischer TaB Verlag 1994 (Fischer TB 5418), ISBN 3-353-01017-3 .
    • The silent scream. Images by Leiko Ikemura , Coron Verlag (CH)
    • "The Nedokoro Brothers". Translated from English by Ingrid and Rainer Rönsch. Frankfurt a. M .: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag 1983 ISBN 3-596-25418-3 .
  • 1970 Okinawa nōtō ( 沖 縄 ノ ー ト )
  • 1971 Mizukara waga namida o nugui tamau hi ( み ず か ら 我 が 涙 を ぬ ぐ い た た ま う 日 ), "The day when He himself wiped my tears"
    • Roman, translated by Siegfried Schaarschmidt. Frankfurt a. M .: Suhrkamp Verlag 1995, ISBN 3-518-01396-3 .
  • 1980 Atama no ii "Ame no ki" ( 頭 の い い 「雨 の 木」 ), "The clever rain tree"
    • Short prose. Translated by Buki Kim. In: The clever rain tree. The scapegoat. Berlin: Volk und Welt 1989, pp. 7–34, ISBN 3-353-00502-1 .
  • 1980 Migawari yagi no hangeki ( 身 が わ り 山羊 の 反 撃 ), "The scapegoat"
    • Short prose. Translated by Buki Kim. In: The clever rain tree. The scapegoat. Berlin: Volk und Welt 1989, pp. 35–142, ISBN 3-353-00502-1 .
  • 1983 Kaba ni kamareru ( 河馬 に 噛 ま れ る ), "bitten by the hippopotamus"
    • Short prose. Translated by Siegfried Schaarschmidt. In: The clever rain tree. Four stories. Berlin: Volk und Welt 1994, pp. 201–230.
  • 1989 Jinsei no shinseki ( 人生 の 親戚 ), "Relatives of Life"
    • Translated by Jacqueline Berndt and Hiroshi Yamane. Berlin: edition q 1994, ISBN 3-596-12857-9 .
  • 1990 Chiryō tō ( 治療 塔 ), "Therapy Station "
  • 1990 Shizuka na seikatsu ( 静 か な 生活 ), "Silent days"
    • Novel. Translated by Wolfgang Schlecht and Ursula Gräfe. Frankfurt a. M .: Insel Verlag 1994, ISBN 3-458-16686-6 .
  • 1994 Aimai na (ambigyuasu na) Nihon no watakushi ( あ い ま い な 日本 の 私 ), "I survived by depicting my sufferings in novels"
    • Translated from English by Uli Aumüller. In: Frankfurter Rundschau December 10, 1994, p. 10. (Nobel Prize Speech)
  • 1995 Moeagaru midori no ki ( 燃 え あ が る 緑 の 木 ), “Green Tree in Flames” trilogy
    • Translated by Annelie Ortmanns-Suzuki. Frankfurt a. M .: Fischer Verlag, ISBN 3-10-055206-7 .
    1. “Sukuinushi” ga nagura reru made ( 「救 い 主」 が 殴 ら れ る ま で ), novel, German “Green tree in flames”, ISBN 3-10-055206-7 .
    2. Yureugoku ( 揺 れ 動 く ), novel; German "The Black Branch", ISBN 3-10-055207-5 .
    3. Oinaru hi ni ( 大 い な る 日 に ), Roman, Eng. "The breathless star". Translated by Nora Bierich. Fischer Verlag, ISBN 978-3-10-055208-2 .
  • 1995 Günter Grass , Ōe Kenzaburō: 50 years ago yesterday. A German-Japanese correspondence . 1st edition. Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 1995, ISBN 3-88243-386-8 , p. 108 .
  • Torikaeko (Chenjiringu) ( 取 り 替 え 子 ( チ ェ ン ジ リ ン グ )), “Tagame. Berlin - Tokyo "
    • Novel. Translated by Nora Bierich, Frankfurt a. M .: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2007, ISBN 3-596-15627-0
      The novel tells of the disturbance that a director's suicide leaves behind in the lives of his friends and family, and is thus at the same time a processing of the suicide of director Jūzō Itami , Ōes brother-in-law.
  • Sayōnara, watashi no hon yo! ( さ よ う な ら 、 私 の 本 よ! ), "Sayonara, my books"
    • Novel. Translated by Nora Bierich, Frankfurt a. M .: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-10-055213-X .
  • Ban Yoshikishu . Kodansha 2013. (6th volume with Ôe's literary ego Kogito Choko as protagonist.)
  • 2018 Suishi , "The Wet Death". Novel about my father. Translated by Nora Bierich, Frankfurt a. M .; S. Fischer, 2018, ISBN 978-3-10-397218-4

Film adaptations

  • 1959 Warera no jidai ( わ れ ら の 時代 ), directed by Kurahara Koreyoshi
  • 1960 Nise Daigakusei ( 偽 大学生 ), director: Masumura Yasuzō
  • 1961 Shiiku ( 飼育 ), director: Nagisa Ōshima
  • 1991 Quem Faz Correr Quim , directed by Mariano Bartolomeu (Angola)
  • 1995 Shizuka na seikatsu ( 静 か な 生活 ), director: Jūzō Itami , music: Ōe Hikari (Kenzaburō's son)

Radio plays

Television appearances

  • Ōe enjoyed reading works by the Soviet SF authors Arkadi and Boris Strugazki , who u. a. also worked on the script for the film Stalker . When Ōe traveled to a writers' conference in Moscow in 1989, he took part with his older brother Arkadi, Carl Sagan , Freeman Dyson , Sakharov and Kim Chi-ha in a discussion that was held on August 5, 1990 as a special under the title Remembers World at Hiroshima? - Ōe Kenzaburō, Conversations and Thoughts of a Trip at NHK .
  • On September 18, 1994, NHK broadcast a special about Ōe and his son Hikari, which accompanies family life shortly before the award of the Nobel Prize by means of the preparations for a lecture tour and a concert Ōes and a son in Hiroshima.

Literature on Ōe

  • Lisette Gebhardt : Japan's conscience. Ōe Kenzaburō . In: Yomitai! New literature from Japan . EB-Verlag Dr. Brandt, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86893-057-3 , pp. 281-286 .
  • Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit: Ōe Kenzaburō . In: Japanese contemporary literature. A manual . edition text + criticism. Richard Boorberg Verlag, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-88377-639-4 , p. 313-344 .
  • Kenzaburo Oe. perlentaucher.de The culture magazine, accessed on July 1, 2012 (with reviews of many works translated into German Ōes).
  • Herlinde Koelbl, Ōe Kenzaburō: I would not have written without the pain . In: ZEITmagazin . tape 34 , August 19, 2010 ( online [accessed July 1, 2012] A conversation about the work A personal experience ).
  • Ōe Kenzaburō. Encyclopaedia Britannica, accessed July 1, 2012 .

Web links

Commons : Kenzaburō Ōe  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Overview of the winners of the Ichō Namiki Prize (Japanese)
  2. ↑ Kenzaburō Ōe: I have a dream . In: Die Zeit , No. 20/2006
  3. ↑ Herlinde Koelbl, Ōe Kenzaburō: I would not have written without the pain . In: ZEITmagazin . tape 34 , August 19, 2010 ( online [accessed July 1, 2012] A conversation about the work A personal experience ).
  4. ↑ a b Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit: Japanese contemporary literature . S. 320 .
  5. ↑ a b Kenzaburo Oe: Biographical . In: The Nobel Prize, accessed May 31, 2020.
  6. ↑ complit.fu-berlin.de
  7. ↑ Norimitsu Onishi: Released From Rigors of a Trial, a Nobel Laureate's Ink Flows Freely . In: The New York Times , May 17, 2008, accessed May 31, 2020.
  8. ^ The Ōe Kenzaburō Prize on the publisher's website ( Memento from September 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (Japanese).
  9. ↑ 呼 び か け さ よ う な ら 原 発 1000 万人 ア ク シ ョ ン Retrieved September 8, 2011.
  10. ↑ Original file number: 平 成 17 年 （ワ） 第 7696 号
  11. ↑ 大江健三郎 ・ 岩 波 書店 沖 縄 戦 裁判 支援 連絡 会 (Japanese).
  12. ↑ Honorary Members: Kenzaburō Ōe. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 18, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Jing Xiaolei: Embracing Foreign Literature . 19-02-2009. Retrieved March 20, 2011.
  14. ↑ Ōe Kenzaburō: NHK ス ペ シ ャ ル 世界 は ヒ ロ シ マ を 覚 え え て い る か 大江健三郎 対 話 と 思索 の 旅 . 1990. Archived from the original on February 1, 2012. Retrieved on March 20, 2011.
  15. ↑ Ōe Kenzaburō: 響 き あ う 父 と 子 ～ 大江健三郎 と 息 子 光 の 30 年 . 1994. Retrieved March 20, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Ōe, Kenzaburō
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 大江 健 三郎 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Ōse , Ehime Prefecture, Japan