This novel offers a contemporary and explosive picture of the nuclear family, which pivots on the bizarre odyssey of a Japanese father and son.

This novel offers a contemporary and explosive picture of the nuclear family, which pivots on the bizarre odyssey of a Japanese father and son.

The first full-length book devoted to Japan's 1994 Nobel Laureate, The Marginal World of Kenzaburo Oe introduces the literary universe bursting with the explosive energies of Bakhtinian grotesque realism. In its center stands the "idiot son," a trickster and soulful healer, unknowingly thrown into the world of myth-making and history. The diverse voices of Oe's characters resonate with one another within and between reinvented texts as the book's analysis flow into the very pores and veins of his masterful writing.

The first full-length book devoted to Japan's 1994 Nobel Laureate, The Marginal World of Kenzaburo Oe introduces the literary universe bursting with the explosive energies of Bakhtinian grotesque realism. In its center stands the "idiot son," a trickster and soulful healer, unknowingly thrown into the world of myth-making and history. The diverse voices of Oe's characters resonate with one another within and between reinvented texts as the book's analysis flow into the very pores and veins of his masterful writing.

This is a critical study of the major novels and short stories of Oba Minako (1930-), the undisputed leader in the resurgence of women writers in Japan. A winner of the coveted Akutagawa Prize, Oba has reclaimed a celebrated position for Japanese women writers, a legacy left by Lady Murasaki and her Heian (900-1100 A.D.) sisters.

By focusing on Oba's postmodernist rethinking of gender and culture, Wilson examines the theme of female Bildungsroman. She demonstrates how Oba draws on "marinated memories, " how she recovers the past (her experiences abroad) in depictions of refreshingly articulate, sober female protagonists who capitalize on overstepping their native socio-cultural boundaries, women who "use and abuse" the system and conventions that nurture and at the same time threaten their identity.

Another important point of emphasis in this study is Oba's playful and absurdist style which reinforces the appropriation of the Bildungsroman form. Oba's writing combines the artistry of a humorist/satirist, a poet, and a painter, with the subversive spirit of a shrewd cultural critic. The rhythmic dialogues and dramatic monologues that abound in her works are continually interrupted by the intrusion of an omnipresent authorial voice. Ideas and musings, sometimes lofty, sometimes verging on the absurd, merge and clash in comic, free-for-all repartee.

Of Birds Crying (Naku tori no, 1985), the recipient of the Noma Bungei Prize, is loosely based on the author's own life, recounting six months in the lives of Yurie Mama, a well-established middle-aged novelist married to a scientist. In this deeply psychological novel, a tapestry of extraordinary moments expands and interconnects via interior monologues and dialogues ranging from the humorous and farcical to the somber and meditative. Acutely perceptive social and cross-cultural commentaries fill the narrator's voice and the characters' conversations. Long-forgotten incidents come back to life, triggered by the sight of an ancient tree, the name of a flower, or the crying of a bird, and memories spawn tales within tales. Despite the fact that the characters' motives for their actions defy prediction, these seemingly disparate elements are woven into a coherent whole, a reflection of the interdependency of humanity and nature in its wholeness that is one of the many underlying threads of the story.

Of Birds Crying (Naku tori no, 1985), the recipient of the Noma Bungei Prize, is loosely based on the author's own life, recounting six months in the lives of Yurie Mama, a well-established middle-aged novelist married to a scientist. In this deeply psychological novel, a tapestry of extraordinary moments expands and interconnects via interior monologues and dialogues ranging from the humorous and farcical to the somber and meditative. Acutely perceptive social and cross-cultural commentaries fill the narrator's voice and the characters' conversations. Long-forgotten incidents come back to life, triggered by the sight of an ancient tree, the name of a flower, or the crying of a bird, and memories spawn tales within tales. Despite the fact that the characters' motives for their actions defy prediction, these seemingly disparate elements are woven into a coherent whole, a reflection of the interdependency of humanity and nature in its wholeness that is one of the many underlying threads of the story.