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title | : | Novels of Oe Kenzaburo Routledge Contemporary Japan Series |
author | : | Claremont, Yasuko. |
publisher | : | Taylor & Francis Routledge |
isbn10 | asin | : | 0415415934 |
print isbn13 | : | 9780415415934 |
ebook isbn13 | : | 9780203884010 |
language | : | English |
subject | Oe, Kenzaburo,--1935- |
publication date | : | 2009 |
lcc | : | PL858.E14Z55 2009eb |
ddc | : | 895.6/35 |
subject | : | Oe, Kenzaburo,--1935- |
Page i
The Novels of e Kenzabur
e Kenzabur was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994. This critical study examines es entire career from 1957 to 2006 and includes chapters on es later novels not published in English. Through close readings at different points in es 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 es 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 Kenzaburs work and those studying Japanese literature and culture more generally.
Yasuko Claremont is a senior lecturer in modern Japanese literature at the University of Sydney, Australia.
Page ii
Routledge Contemporary Japan Series
1 A Japanese Company in Crisis
Ideology, strategy, and narrative
Fiona Graham
2 Japans Foreign Aid
Old continuities and new directions
Edited by David Arase
3 Japanese Apologies for World War II
A rhetorical study
Jane W.Yamazaki
4 Linguistic Stereotyping and Minority Groups in Japan
Nanette Gottlieb
5 Shinkansen
From bullet train to symbol of modern Japan
Christopher P.Hood
6 Small Firms and Innovation Policy in Japan
Edited by Cornelia Storz
7 Cities, Autonomy and Decentralization in Japan
Edited by Carola Hein and Philippe Pelletier
8 The Changing Japanese Family
Edited by Marcus Rebick and Ayumi Takenaka
9 Adoption in Japan
Comparing policies for children in need
Peter Hayes and Toshie Habu
10 The Ethics of Aesthetics in Japanese Cinema and Literature
Polygraphic desire
Nina Cornyetz
11 Institutional and Technological Change in Japans Economy
Past and present
Edited by Janet Hunter and Cornelia Storz
12 Political Reform in Japan
Leadership looming large
Alisa Gaunder
13 Civil Society and the Internet in Japan
Isa Ducke
14 Japans Contested War Memories
The memory rifts in historical consciousness of World War II
Philip A.Seaton
Page iii
15 Japanese Love Hotels
A cultural history
Sarah Chaplin
16 Population Decline and Ageing in Japan
The social consequences
Florian Coulmas
17 Zainichi Korean Identity and Ethnicity
David Chapman
18 A Japanese Joint Venture in the Pacific
Foreign bodies in tinned tuna
Kate Barclay
19 Japanese-Russian Relations, 19072007
Joseph P.Ferguson
20 War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Post-War Japan, 19452007
The Japanese history textbook controversy and Ienaga Saburos court challenges
Yoshiko Nozaki
21 A New Japan for the Twenty-First Century
An inside overview of current fundamental changes and problems
Edited by Rien T.Segers
22 A Life Adrift
Soeda Azembo, popular song and modern mass culture in Japan
Translated by Michael Lewis
23 The Novels of e Kenzabur
Yasuko Claremont
Page iv
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Page v
The Novels of e Kenzabur
Yasuko Claremont
![The Novels of Oe Kenzaburo Routledge Contemporary Japan - image 2](/uploads/posts/book/8117/df2661649dbe2c9c124ff53dac0feff6.png)
LONDON AND NEW YORK
Page vi
First published 2009
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 5RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledges collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
2009 Yasuko Claremont
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Claremont, Yasuko.
The novels of Oe Kenzaburo/Yasuko Claremont.
p. cm.(Routledge contemporary Japan series)
1. Oe, Kenzaburo, 1935 I. Title.
PL858.E14Z55 2008
895.635dc22
2008029206
ISBN 0-203-88401-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10 0-415-41593-4 (hbk)
ISBN10 0-203-88401-9 (ebk)
ISBN13 978-0-415-41593-4 (hbk)
ISBN13 978-0-203-88401-0 (ebk)
Page vii
To the memory of Tohru Okuda
Page viii
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Page ix
Contents
Acknowledgements | x |
Authors note | xi |
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