Literature · Film · 1935–2023
Born: 31 January 1935 · Died: 3 March 2023 · Age at death: 88
Kenzaburō Ōe died aged 88. He was born on 31 January 1935 and died on 3 March 2023.
Japanese novelist of A Personal Matter and Hiroshima Notes, a campaigner against nuclear weapons, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature
Did you know?Much of his writing was inspired by his relationship with his son, who was born with a brain injury and became a composer.
Kenzaburō Ōe wrote about Japan's post-war conscience and his own family. He grew up in a forest village on the island of Shikoku. He studied French literature in Tokyo and won a major prize while still a student. In 1963 his son Hikari was born with a brain abnormality. That experience shaped A Personal Matter. Hikari later became a composer. Ōe also wrote Hiroshima Notes and campaigned against nuclear weapons. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994. He refused Japan's Order of Culture.
Kenzaburō Ōe (大江 健三郎, Ōe Kenzaburō; 31 January 1935 – 3 March 2023) was a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature.
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Profile
Japanese writer, 1935–2023
Kenzaburō Ōe was born in Ōse, Shikoku, on 31 January 1935.
He wrote A Personal Matter in 1964.
He wrote Hiroshima Notes.
He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994.
Career highlights
Did you know?His son Hikari became a composer whose music sold widely in Japan.
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