The Silent Cry

Kenzaburō Ōe

Serpent's Tail, 1988 - Fiction - 274 pages

"Two brothers, Takashi and Mitsu, return from Tokyo to the village of their childhood. The selling of their family home leads them to an inescapable confrontation with their family history. Their attempt to escape the influence of the city ends in failure as they realise that its tentacles extend to everything in the countryside, even to their own relationship."--Publisher description.

Contents

• Section 1: 22
• Section 2: 41
• Section 3: 61

About the author

Kenzaburo Oe was born on January 31, 1935. He was born in a small village on the island of Shikoku, Japan. A winner of numerous Japanese literary prizes, Oe came to manhood during World War II and the occupation. At Tokyo University, Oe studied Jean-Paul Sartre and absorbed many popular leftist ideas. These influences appear in his early writings, which often deal with contemporary issues. With the birth of his deformed son, father and son became the new focus of his work. In his two books, A Personal Matter (1964) and A Healing Family (1996), Oe describes the pain involved with accepting his brain-damaged son and the small victories involved their lives as his son progressed. In 1994, Oe won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Silent Cry; Paperback original
• Author: Kenzaburō Ōe
• Translated by: John Bester
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail, 1988
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: May 15, 2008
• ISBN: 1852421215, 9781852421212
• Length: 274 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Family Life / General; Fiction / Family Life / Siblings; Fiction / General; Fiction / Literary