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SOURCE: BBC
Nobel Prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe dies
The Nobel Prize-winning Japanese author Kenzaburo Oe has died at the age of 88.
Strongly influenced by French and American literature, he was known for his powerful accounts of the atomic bombing of Japan and coping with his son, who has learning difficulties.
He won the Nobel Literature Prize in 1994, with judges praising his "darkly poetic" novels for their "disconcerting picture of the human predicament".
His death, on 3 March, was due to old age, his publisher Kodansha said.
Born in a village on Japan's southern island of Shikoku, Oe came from a family of wealthy landowners who lost most of their property due to a land reform imposed after the Second World War.
Oe was 10 when the war ended, and his early life was overshadowed by the conflict.
At school, he was asked if he was willing to die for the Emperor every day, and he remembered feeling shame in bed at night when he decided that he wasn't.
After Japan's surrender in 1945, he became fascinated by the democratic principles espoused by the occupying forces, and later became a fierce critic of what he called Japan's military and economic aggression.
"The humiliation took a firm grip on him and has coloured much of his work," the Swedish Academy said. "He himself describes his writing as a way of exorcising demons," with his novels frequently depicting a world knocked off its axis by dark, disturbing forces.
The Nobel Prize-winning Japanese author Kenzaburo Oe has died at the age of 88.
Strongly influenced by French and American literature, he was known for his powerful accounts of the atomic bombing of Japan and coping with his son, who has learning difficulties.
He won the Nobel Literature Prize in 1994, with judges praising his "darkly poetic" novels for their "disconcerting picture of the human predicament".
His death, on 3 March, was due to old age, his publisher Kodansha said.
Born in a village on Japan's southern island of Shikoku, Oe came from a family of wealthy landowners who lost most of their property due to a land reform imposed after the Second World War.
Oe was 10 when the war ended, and his early life was overshadowed by the conflict.
At school, he was asked if he was willing to die for the Emperor every day, and he remembered feeling shame in bed at night when he decided that he wasn't.
After Japan's surrender in 1945, he became fascinated by the democratic principles espoused by the occupying forces, and later became a fierce critic of what he called Japan's military and economic aggression.
"The humiliation took a firm grip on him and has coloured much of his work," the Swedish Academy said. "He himself describes his writing as a way of exorcising demons," with his novels frequently depicting a world knocked off its axis by dark, disturbing forces.