A Personal Matter

Klappentext Oe's most important novel, A Personal Matter, has been called by The New York Times "close to a perfect novel." In A Personal Matter, Oe has chosen a difficult, complex though universal subject: how does one face and react to the birth of an abnormal child? Bird, the protagonist, is a young man of 27 with antisocial tendencies who more than once in his life, when confronted with a critical problem, has "cast himself adrift on a sea of whisky like a besotted Robinson Crusoe." But he has never faced a crisis as personal or grave as the prospect of life imprisonment in the cage of his newborn infant-monster. Should he keep it? Dare he kill it? Before he makes his final decision, Bird's entire past seems to rise up before him, revealing itself to be a nightmare of self-deceit. The relentless honesty with which Oe portrays his hero -- or antihero -- makes Bird one of the most unforgettable characters in recent fiction.

Product details

• Authors: Kenzaburo Oe, Kenzaburô Ôe, Oe Kenzaburo
• Assisted by: John Nathan (Translation)
• Publisher: Grove/Atlantic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 15.01.1994
• EAN: 9780802150615
• ISBN: 978-0-8021-5061-5
• Dimensions: 134 mm x 205 mm x 12 mm
• Series: Oe, Kenzaburo; Oe, Kenzaburo
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Japan, Fiction in translation, c 1960 to c 1969, CULTURAL HERITAGE / Asian / Japanese, children with special needs;marriage;autofiction;Nobel Prize