Abe Kōbō and Ōe Kenzaburō: The Search for Identity in Contemporary Japanese Literature

Abstract

The literary scene in Japan during the last five years or so has been eventful. The award to Kawabata Yasunari (1898-1972) of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968 brought Japanese literature into the international arena for the first time. Tanizaki Junichiro (1886–1965), who had been reputed to be a candidate for the Prize for many years, did not survive to witness the event. Kawabata himself ended his life by a rather anti-climactic suicide in 1972. This had been preceded eighteen months earlier by Mishima Yukio’s (1925-70) more dramatic and ostentatious ritual suicide (seppuku). With the death of Shiga Naoya (1883-1972) we have scarcely any writer of importance left who began his career in the Taisho period (1912-26). Of the writers who started working before the Second World War, Ibuse Masuji (1897–) and Ishikawa Jun (1899–) deserve special mention, but the major roles in the contemporary literary scene are played by post-war writers. Among these, we choose for discussion here two men whose choice of themes and innovation in literary methods make them particularly relevant to an understanding of modern Japan: Abe Kōbō (1924–) and Ōe Kenzaburō (1935–). They are writers who have already produced important works and are likely to produce more in the years to come.