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It is embarrassing to admit, but I had never properly read a book until I graduated from high school. I only started reading after entering university. My reading style was a self-taught hodgepodge of indiscriminate reading. I discovered Soseki, Kafu, Dazai, Balzac, Hemingway, Shoji Kaoru, and Murakami Haruki all around the same time. It was a stoic youth of reading, where a young man with no leisure or education to enjoy literature, and no mentor or knowledge, confronted works and authors alone, like a martial arts match.

I believe this book was born from my own reading style and experiences during my university days. When I was asked if I would like to write a book by choosing one post-war author, the first person who came to mind was Oe Kenzaburo. This is because Oe was the author who, at one point, shone brilliantly out of my hodgepodge of reading.

What did authors write at the turning points of their respective eras? Centered on the representative post-war author Oe Kenzaburo, my book connects the Meiji era's Soseki with the new literature after 3.11 to discuss social transformation and literature.

I discussed two figures: the peerless young author who once carried the spirit of the age on his shoulders, and the great author who, after a certain point, struggled desperately to keep up with the changes of the times and ultimately found himself in emptiness after 3.11. I chose this because I believed that the author's pilgrimage reflected the state of Japanese society from the post-war period to the present day.

After the death of the Nobel Prize-winning author, I wonder if his deification and transformation into a mere subject of research are progressing. I have a secret hope that the freedom to encounter Oe and the freedom to read him will not be taken away from ordinary readers. As long as the post-war era has not truly ended, Oe is not yet an author who deserves to be canonized by "authority."

I heard from an editor that, during his lifetime, Mr. Oe read every single piece of writing about himself, no matter how small. He was still alive when I finished the manuscript. I had a dream-like hope that Mr. Oe might read this book. That dream was crushed when I heard the news of Oe Kenzaburo's death in March of last year.

However, as an anonymous reader, I intend to continue thinking alone about the words Oe left behind, like a will to modern people.

Kensuke Oku

NHK Books

248 pages, 1,650 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time this magazine was published.