Kenzaburo Oe won the Nobel Prize in 1994 (the year after Toni Morrison) and he’s the among the oldest living laureate (I think Alice Munro is the only one older) and won the longest ago, except for Wole Soyinka, who won a decade before. He’s the last Japanese language winner and only the second ever (after Kawabata). His work is deeply human and humane, personal, and very strong, or least the ones I’ve read are. He’s positioned pretty clearly as a post-WII writer, and like […]