This text surveys the accomplishments of Nobel Prize winner Oe Kenzaburo and other writers of the post-war generation, while looking further to examine the literary parameters of the "post-Oe" generation. It includes essays on Endo Shusaku, Hayashi Kyoko, Kanai Mieko, Kurahashi Yumiko, Murakami Haruki, Murakami Ryu, Nakagami Kenji, Oe Kenzaburo, Oh...more

Spirit Matters is a ground-breaking work, the first to explore a broad range of writings on spirituality in contemporary Japanese literature. It draws on a variety of literary works, from enormously popular fiction (Miura Ayako’s Hyôten and Shirokari Pass and the novels of Murakami Haruki) to more problematic "serious" fiction (Ôe Kenzaburô’...more

Kenzaburo Oe is internationally recognized as one of the world’s finest writers. When he won the Nobel Prize nearly ten years ago, he announced that he would no longer be writing fiction—or, if he did, that his future work would be radically different from the highly autobiographical fiction he was known for. Now, with Somersault, Oe has bro...more

This text presents a searching study of Shimao Toshio and his work. It is not only a thorough assessment of his literary legacy, but also aims to consider the broader issues relating to the emergence and nature of the postwar Japanese sense of identity. The book contextualizes Toshio's "dream stories" as a literary expression of wartime trauma, and...more

In spite of the perpetrators' intentions, the Tokyo gas attack left only twelve people dead, but thousands were injured and many suffered serious after-effects. The novelist Haruki Murakami interviews the victims to try and establish precisely what happened on the subway that day. He also interviews members and ex-members of the doomsdays cult resp...more