Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Japan's Dual Identity: A Writer's Dilemma

Author(s): Kenzaburō Ōe
Source: World Literature Today, Vol. 62, No. 3, Contemporary Japanese Literature
(Summer, 1988), pp. 359-369
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40144281
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 Essays

Japan's Dual Identity: A Writer's Dilemma

By KENZABURO OE Is Japanese literature de- my stay here in the United States, am welcomed by
caying? I, as one Japanese neutral smiles, that is because I am a Japanese whose
writer, stand before you job is to produce Japanese novels and not auto-
harboring not unfounded suspicions that Japanese mobiles, TV sets, or audio equipment - which are
literature is indeed decaying. A confession such ashighly competitive in the international market. I am
this from a writer from the Third World should free from the hearty welcomes of the happy users of
undoubtedly disappoint an audience that is expecting
Japanese products. At the same time, I am free from
a genuine "challenge" from our discussion titled "The
the overt antagonisms of workers engaging in the
Challenge of Third World Culture."* There aremanufacture
rea- of products that must compete with
sons, however, why I have willingly accepted to act ones. Nevertheless, when I compare this
Japanese
the part of the disappointing clown. There visit
is anwith my first one to this country twenty years
element in the Japanese nation and among Japanese
ago, I, by the mere fact of my being Japanese, cannot
that makes us unwilling to accept the fact that we are
help but feel a strong sense of crisis. Although I have
members of the Third World and reluctant to always
play sensed that crisis in Japan, coming here has
our role accordingly. Japan appeared on the interna-
made me feel the crisis more acutely.
tional scene clearly as a Third World nation fromThe crisis that I feel is the crisis of living in a
about the time of the Meiji Restoration (1868). In country
her which, though an economic giant with its
process of modernization ever since, she has been huge a
trade surplus, is dependent on imports for most
nation blatantly hostile to her fellow Third World of its food and resources. It is a nation where the
nations in Asia, as evidenced by her annexation of
livelihood of its people will be devastated if the bal-
Korea and by her war of aggression against China.
ance of imports and exports is disrupted. I feel the
Her hostility toward her neighbors continuescrisis
even of living in a country which, in its process of
today. rising to the status of a technically advanced nation,
The destruction we wrought upon China during has spread pollution everywhere and is unable to find
the invasion is so great that what has been destroyed a solution to it. I feel the danger of living in a country
can never be restored or compensated for. However, which, though having experienced the Hiroshima
even now, more than forty years after the end of the and Nagasaki bombings, is now run by a government
war, I do not think that we Japanese have done that can only support the United States' SDI pro-
enough to compensate for what we can compensate
gram, thereby helping spread the nuclear-deterrence
for - either economically or culturally. The annexa-
myth in the Far East.
tion of Korea in 1910 is no bygone matter when we
Because of her wealth, Japan is now a member of
consider the discriminatory status that some 600,000
the advanced nations, but, to be sure, she is not an
Korean residents in Japan are now suffering. Further-
independent nation which implements plans of her
more, when we see our government supporting a
own to establish world peace. I feel the crisis of being
South Korean government which oppresses aspirers
a citizen of a nation of self-satisfied people - as evi-
to democracy in that nation, we see clearly that Japan
is indeed one of the powers that oppresses the Third denced in the recent national election (1986) by the
World. Such must also be the national image of Japan landslide victory of the party led by Prime Minister
not only to seekers of democracy in South Korea but Nakasone, President Reagan's good friend and col-
to democratic forces throughout Asia as well. league. As one Japanese intellectual, I have come to
I must listen with undivided attention to the criti- sense the crisis stronger than ever through my visit
here. I shrink back in fear when I think that the
cisms of my colleagues, and especially to our partici-
pant from the Philippines, Kidlat Tahimik. Japan and people on those four islands in the Far East are
the Japanese betray democratic aspirants in Third heading for destruction without knowing it, but in a
World countries. We are often aggressors toward few weeks I will have to go back to those islands and
nations of the Third World, of which we ourselves are become lost in the crowd there.
in fact a member. The burden of that image weighs
heavily on my back as I stand before you now. Such is the frame of reference with which I, as a
What, then, is the image of Japan and the Japanese Japanese writer taking part in this discussion titled
in the eyes of the industrialized nations? If I, during "The Challenge of Third World Culture," will be

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360 WORLD LITERATURE TODAY

of that
talking to you. I therefore must admit period,
that myhad already started to use the term
talk
may be confusing, because I speak from a standpoint
junbungaku. He wrote, "[That man], with his iron
of twofold or perhaps threefold ambiguities.
hammer named None-
'Historical Treatise/ preaches that
theless, I wish for myself that I junbungaku'
will be able tobe crushed and thus endeavors
needs to
overcome those ambiguities. I also hopeto assailto
its envisage
realm." From what I have quoted, we are
for myself an idea of Japanese culture able to that could
know that the term junbungaku, as employed
perhaps play a unique role among the cultures of the
by Tokoku Kitamura, was used as an antithesis to the
Third World. In order to accomplish these wishes, I
sciences of philosophy and history with which the
will present to you the ambiguities as ambiguities and
Japanese of the early and mid-Meiji era strived to
would like to ask my fellow panelists to guide me out
of them. establish the spirit of modernization by borrowing
European Iideas.
As I mentioned to you in the beginning, Therefore, the term junbungaku,
suspect
that Japanese literature is decaying. when
That used
is nowadays,
to say, Idoes not denote what it once
did. It isare
suspect with good reason that the Japanese usedlosing
today to refer to, as it were, literature
that has passively
their power to create an active model for the contem- secluded itself from the literature
of the
porary age and for the future. I suspect that mass media; that is, it is used to denote
modern
Japanese culture is losing its vital force andthat
literature that we
is not "popular" or "mundane."
are seeing, as its outcrop, the waning Myof
talkJapanese
on what is "sincere" literature and what is
literature. In recent years it is said that
not the
may one realm in the ears of a non-Japanese
ring strange
of intellectual activity which has seen the but
audience, sharpest
I, as a Japanese writer, would like to
decline is literature. To the youngerelaborate
generation who
on it for the purpose of confirming my
respond so sensitively to new cultural developments,
identity. Although the term junbungaku is now used
literature no longer seems to be within
to their focus
differentiate theof
writer's passive withdrawal from
attention. This, I believe, is already an established
mass-media literature, to Tokoku, the young poet of
theory in cultural journalism. I fear that this is an
romanticism and the rationalist of literature who,
ominous phenomenon foreboding the total destruc-
during the Meiji period, took the matter of the quest
tion of Japanese culture, let alone cultural journalism.
for his identity so seriously, even to the point of
It is not unusual for Kurt Vonnegut to draw figures
suicide, junbungaku constituted the antithesis to phi-
of Japanese in his tender, pathos-filled, but inferno-
like paintings of the future world. One losophy
such and history
piece is aand was an active intellectual
genre that he
painting of a city destroyed by a neutron bomb: a city hoped would help create a spirit of
in which human life has been terminated modernization
but where among the Japanese. I feel that it is
the machinery of the highly mechanized now necessary for us to reevaluate the term jun-
Matsushita
bungaku in light of its two definitions.
and Honda factories are still in motion. The roof of
one of the buildings is painted with a sharp sem- The role of literature - insofar as man is obviously a
blance of Mount Fuji, and the apparently Mid- historical being - is to create a model of a contempo-
western U.S. city is the Japanese archipelago in rary age which envelops past and future and a human
metaphor. I cannot deny the possibility wherein Jap- model that lives in that age. In Japan, where the
anese culture, after losing its strength to create a history of modern and contemporary literature spans
human model to direct its culture toward a new a period of over a hundred years, there have been a
future, shatters and crumbles, only to leave behind few
in men of letters who, as individuals, have created
motion such products as automobiles, TV sets, and works which surpassed their times. However, it is
microcomputers - and the younger generation taking
only for a short period in the history of modern
no notice of the oddity of the situation. I would like to
Japanese literature, a period which we refer to as the
examine the present situation of Japanese literature
postwar era, that a group of writers, as a definite
by delving into the foreboding elements of these
phenomena. literary current, have clearly provided a contempo-
A characteristic lexical item employed among the rary age and a human model which inhabited that
writers of Japanese literature is the term junbungaku, age. It was a new literary phenomenon that started
which in English would translate as "sincere or polite immediately after the defeat in the Pacific War, in
literature" or in French as belles lettres." It was which Japan, in 1945, experienced the bombings at
only after the Meiji Restoration that modern litera-
ture, with strong European influences, was estab-
lished in our country. The precursory treatise that
provided the rationale for literature in Japan was *Ed. Note: Kenzaburo Oe's paper was delivered at Duke Uni-
Shoyo Tsubouchi's Shosetsu shinzui (The Essence ofversity in Durham, N.C., on 25 September 1986 as one of the
featured addresses at the conference "The Challenge of Third
the Novel), published in 1885 - i.e., seventeen yearsWorld Culture," sponsored by Duke's Center for International
after the Meiji Restoration. By then, Tokoku Kitamu- Studies. It appears here with the expressed permission of the
ra, the pioneer in modern Japanese romanticism, author. On Oe, see also WLT 58:3 (Summer 1984), pp. 370-73,
who was keenly aware of the goings-on of the society and 60:1 (Winter 1986), pp. 38^39.

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 OE 361

thirty-six; Mishima
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This postwar was the youngest
literature was and Shohei
Ookafirst
a vital force especially during the the oldest.
ten years after
the war. Although it is hard toDuring say theexactly when it
years of intellectual suppression - that
ended, I believe it continued to is, thrive
during thewhile
immediate prewar period and the war
postwar
writers vigorously continued to itself produce- Haniya experienced
their works, Marxism through the
even amid various other literary peasant movement, Noma through the liberation
currents.
Were we to look at specific examples,
movement such
of the buraku, as
a socially disadvantaged
Shohei Ooka's novelistic account "The Battle of class of people. Takeda and Shiina suffered oppres-
Leyte" (1969) and Taijun Takeda's "Mount Fujision Sani-
for having participated in leftist activities while a
tarium," the year 1970 seems to serve as astudent fair and laborer respectively. Ooka had been
guideline. That was also the year Yukio Mishima taken prisoner by the U.S. forces. Noma, Takeda,
committed suicide after calling for a coup d'etat and by
Umezaki had been drafted. When report of
members of the Self-Defense Forces - the de facto defeat reached Shimao, he was a Kamikaze pilot
awaiting orders for a suicide attack. Neither Abe nor
armed forces of Japan. A comprehensive analysis of
the postwar writers brings to light a contemporary
Mishima - the youngest of the writers - was free from
age and a human model they created, and it is to thatthe turmoil of the colonies or from the effects of
age and model that Mishima tried to producestudent
a mobilization.
counterpart. Mishima too, however, from a broader Over and beyond their experiences of harsh real-
perspective can be counted as one of the postwar ity, these writers were either researchers in some
literati. special field of interest or, at the least, very careful
With this chronology, we find that postwar litera- readers. Haniya and Shiina studied Dostoevsky.
ture was, in the history of modern and contemporaryTakeda read Lu Xun, Noma immersed himself in
Japanese literature, the literature that strived to pro-French symbolism, and Ooka read Stendhal. In fact,
vide a total, comprehensive contemporary age and all
a the postwar writers were young intellectuals who
human model that lived it. It was literature that had endeavored to establish their identity by absorb-
endeavored to grapple squarely with the needs of ing the literary impact from Europe. Unable to give
vent to self-expression during the war years, these
intellectuals, and in fact "postwar literature" did win
intellectuals honed their intellectualism and lived
firm support from intellectuals in various fields. Jun-
bungaku, which Tokoku had proclaimed in defiance
reality with a spirit of defiance against the battlefields
and the fascist government that ruled them. Postwar
of philosophy and history in order to assert his raison
d'etre, was still in its embryo stage in the middleliterature
of was, in other words, a literary activity
which these intellectuals had started simultaneously,
the Meiji era. Tokoku, calling out desperately for the
protection of junbungaku, built a fence around a once
lot given the freedom to express themselves.
next to the edifices erected by the philosophy-and- The defeat in the Pacific War, which brought about
history architects who had imported know-how and a decisive period of transition among the postwar
writers, was, needless to say, the most important of
material from Europe, so that he and his compatriots
events that ever took place in Japan's history of
would at least later have something on which to build
modernization since the Meiji Restoration. For Ja-
their house. It can rightly be said that Tokoku's toil
pan, which had pursued modernization all the while
and labor bore fruit in the form of postwar literature.
and had dared to compete with the imperialist na-
How was it possible for postwar literature to ac-
tions of the West, the defeat was nothing less than
complish this? The feat can be attributed to historical
reasons. The postwar literati started to publish their
the revelation of a multifarious impasse for an imperi-
alistically underdeveloped nation. The surrender also
works within two or three years after Japan's defeat.
Yutaka Haniya's "Ghosts," Hiroshi Noma's "Dark led to an examination of askew elements in Japanese
culture and tradition of premodernization days.
Pictures," Yukio Mishima's "Cigarette," Taijun Take-
da's Saishi kajin, and Haruo Umezaki's SakurajimaMoreover, the defeat spurred a reform which sup-
are works which appeared only a year after the war. plied momentum to Third World-oriented liberation
(For Mishima, however, Confessions of a Mask, pub- opportunities both within and outside the nation.
lished in 1949, is more characteristic of postwar liter-Were we to search for a metaphor for this situation
ature than "The Cigarette.") The year 1947 saw the in literature, I would suggest Dickens's novels, which
publication of Rinzo Shiina's "Midnight Feast." areA studded with "units" that convey diverse mean-
year after that came Toshio Shimao's "Island's End," ings. As we read on, the "units" progress along the
Shohei Ooka's "Prisoner of War," and Kobo Abe's path Dickens plots for each of them. When the novel
"Road Sign at the End of the Street" - and here is completed, he affixes to each of the units a retro-
already we have the whole array of the postwar spective light by means of which each comes to bear
literati. These are writers who had to endure silence full meaning. The individual units are alive already
while fascism prevailed prior to and during the war and have significant import in themselves within the
years. Their pent-up frustrations became the spring- story as it progresses, yet the light which emanates
board for forming their identity as intellectuals. Onfrom the denouement reveals to us not a contradic-
Japan's day of defeat their ages ranged from twenty to tion but a new import; and because of the fact that

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362 WORLD LITERATURE TODAY

the final light imparts a new significance to

Japan and the the should live in Asia in this new
Japanese
individual units in addition to the onenuclear
they age.
boreAn amid
examination of whether or not this
the progress of the story, the unitsprinciple
take on has twofold
become a general one among the Japa-
nese
meanings, thus giving the story itself in thesignifi-
a new past forty years should be the basis for
cance. criticism of Japan and the Japanese today.
The diverse units which modernization bore ever If we were to add to the list of postwar writers the
since the Meiji Restoration came to reveal twofold name of Tamiki Hara, who wrote of his experiences as
meanings upon surrender, that light which shone an A-bomb victim in Hiroshima and who chose to
retrospectively from the finale. That is to say, commit
the suicide as soon as a new conflict - the Korean
War - broke out, it will become all the more clear
Japanese, through defeat in the Pacific War, saw for
that the major preoccupation of postwar writers was
the first time the entire picture of the modernization
of a nation called Japan. At that time it was postwar
to examine, with the force of their imagination, what,
literature which depicted most sensitively and mostin pursuit of modernization, Japan and the Japanese
had done to Asia and to the vulnerable elements
sincerely that very picture of Japan and the Japanese.
At the international level Japanese modernization
within the nation, how the impasse foreboded defeat,
took the form of annexation of Korea, invasionand of what means of resuscitation were possible for the
China, and wars of aggression in other regions nation of after it died a national death.
Asia. However, the intellectuals who had had to We should also examine how the postwar writers
participate in these incidents and who witnessed thedealt with the problem of the emperor system, for
utter downfall of such imperialistic expansion, wrote this was the cultural and political axle upon which
of what they saw in various ways. Taijun Takeda andJapan's modernization revolved. One of the condi-
Yoshie Hotta wrote about what they saw in China. tions necessary for the nation's modernization was
Hiroshi Noma and Shohei Ooka wrote of what they national unity. Thus, the emperor was made the
witnessed in the Philippines. The literary activities absolute figurehead, and modernization was pursued
among Korean nationals in Japan correspond to those under the pretext of his inviolable authority. What
by Japanese writers who wrote from the standpoint ofthis actually meant was the deification of the emper-
Japan as an aggressor nation. Korean writers in Japan or. At the beginning of the new year following the
wrote in Japanese and delved into the matter ofdefeat, the emperor issued a proclamation that he
Japan's colonial rule over the Korean peninsula, a was no deity, a proclamation to which MacArthur
matter which has ramifications and legacies even expressed satisfaction. The fact that soon afterward
today. Okinawa, under the Ryukyu Empire, longanother "emperor," a certain "Emperor Kumazawa,"
maintained its own political system and a culture with appeared, claiming to be the descendant of an em-
strong cosmological features. After being taken overperor in the Middle Ages, is an indication of one of
by Japan, however, Okinawa was victimized in thethe diversities and the astounding amount of total
process of Japan's modernization to an extent incom- energy which the deified emperor had been sup-
parable to that of any other prefecture. The fact that pressing.
Okinawa became the sole battlefield on Japanese soil The Great Japanese Imperial Army which invaded
speaks for itself. The Pacific War culminated in the all regions of Asia was nothing but the emperor's
battles at Okinawa and left the islands in a state of armed forces. In Okinawa, the only Japanese soil on
total devastation. Even after the signing of the peace which any battle was fought, many citizens died.
treaty, Okinawa remained under the dominion of the Analysts claim that the tragedy the Okinawans had
U.S. forces for years to come, but all the while she had to suffer was exacerbated by their sense of loyalty
strived and managed to accomplish her own recon- to the emperor, a loyalty stronger than that embraced
struction. Because of this experience, Okinawa has aby Japanese on the mainland, for they took greater
self-expression of her own. pride in the fact that they, after the Meiji Restora-
The self-expression of the people of Okinawa is a tion, were admitted as children of the emperor for
product of their realistic ideas, efforts, and culturalthe first time in their history.
tradition. We can find, in their expression, direct and The aims of the postwar writers were to "relativ-
important clues by which Japanese can search for aize" the value of the emperor, who had had absolute
life-style which does not pose a threat to any of thepower, and to liberate the Japanese from the curse of
nations in Asia. The writers who start by asking how the emperor system which haunted their minds, even
to revive from the experiences of the Hiroshima andat the subconscious level. Were we to view the
Nagasaki bombings bear in mind the movementemperor system as positioned at the peak of the
which seeks the enactment of the A-Bomb Victims' structural hierarchy, Hiroshi Noma depicted the low-
Relief Law. The movement is also one which is est, the social outcasts for whom he had been working
making a continuous effort for the eradication of all since before the war. Noma continued to write even
nuclear weapons. Those writers gaze squarely at the after it was common knowledge within journalistic
destructive impasse to which Japan's modernization circles that the period of postwar literature was over.
from the Meiji Restoration brought us. It is here that"Ring of Youth," a novel on which he spent many
we can discover for ourselves a principle as to how years, was completed a year after Mishima's suicide.

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 OE 363

The work depicts a scene in What,

which then, isthe outcasts
the situation of junbungaku in the
demonstrate a show of force in latter
a masshalf movement
of the 1980s? Young
andintellectuals who
emerge victorious. The victoryrespond
is a quickly to intellectual one,
short-lived fads say that jun-
but the mere fact that Nomabungaku
depicted is alreadyadead,
victory
or that it isby
about to breathe
those who had been most oppressed
its last. Theyis in that
believe itself very
although there still may be
meaningful. some literary activity shoved away in some bleak
corner in
Mishima's call for a coup d'etat of journalism where the survivors are barely
the compounds
of the Self-Defense Forces in making
Ichigaya a living, the latter
and hiswill sooner or later fade
subse-
away as a natural
quent suicide constituted essentially course of events.
a theatrical per- This group of
young intellectuals
formance. In his later years Mishima's is composed
political, ethi- of critics, play-
cal, and esthetic principles wrights,
centered on and
screenwriters, his deep of new and
introducers
lamentation for the emperor, who diverse had
literary theories from America
proclaimed he and Europe. It
was not a deity but a human being. even includes writers whose works
Mishima's are not consid-
suicide
is an incident which can never be effaced from our ered to be in the realm of junbungaku as well as
memory, for he supposedly had prepared a balefuljournalists in various fields and a group who nowa-
ghost to appear time and time again whenever Japandays in our country enjoy the greatest popularity
encountered a political crisis. This is one of theamong the younger generation: the copywriters of
reasons why I have set 1970 as the year in which thecommercial messages. One might also add almost all
curtain fell for postwar literature - literature which, the "cultural heroes" of today's grotesquely bloated
through Japan's defeat in 1945, was begun as a means consumer society in Japan. Lack of activity in the
of giving vent to cultural energies that had been realm of junbungaku can be substantiated objectively
suppressed since the prewar days. What I mean nowwhen we compare the volume of its publication with
by the portents of the decay of Japanese literature is that of other literature such as popular historical
nothing other than the loss of the unique status whichnovels, science fiction, mysteries, and various nonfic-
postwar literature had established in the realm of tion categories. Although, obviously, the prewar pe-
Japanese culture. In other words, the literary forceriod and the war years provide no basis for compari-
which postwar literature had once possessed to en-son, never have there been so many publications in
lighten Japan and the Japanese to reality and culture Japan as in the past forty years. The number of
is now being lost. junbungaku publications, however, is inversely pro-
portional to the increase in the amount of the other
publications. Moreover, there is not one work of
junbungaku to be found in the 1985 list of the ten
best-selling Japanese books in either fiction or non-
fiction.
Amidst such a trend, Haruki Murakami, a writer
born after the war, is said to be attracting new
readers to junbungaku. It is clear, however, that
Murakami's target lies outside the sphere of jun-
bungaku, and that is exactly where he is trying to
establish his place. It is generally believed that there
is nothing that directly links Murakami with postwar
literature of the 1946-70 period. (As a hasty aside
here, I believe that any future resuscitation of jun-
bungaku will be possible only if ways are found to fill
in the wide gap that exists between Murakami and
pre-1970 postwar literature.)
Another indicator of the long downward path that
junbungaku is taking can be seen by the long busi-
ness slump for literary monthlies peculiar to Japan,
those magazines which had helped nurture and de-
velop short stories unique to Japanese literature. I
am sure that those literary magazines are periodicals
of least concern to the young intellectuals who now
are the vanguard of Japan's consumer society. How-
ever, looking back on the first ten years after the war,
such magazines, together with numerous general-
interest publications, played an important role in
maintaining high cultural standards. Almost all the
representative literary works - e.g., the ones I have
KENZABURO OE (© Shinchosha) mentioned above - were, as was common, practice in

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364 WORLD LITERATURE TODAY

the publishing system of our nation, West,

first found themselves.
published in In Japan it was the time
literary magazines. It can be said that
whenthe slumping
the United Red Army, formed three years after
the Tokyo
literary magazines are eliciting derisive riots, trod the path toward annihilation.
criticism
among the young intellectuals whoThe bodies
have no ofdirect
numerous Red Army members exe-
cuted in cold
means of recalling the glory and grandeur ofblood by their colleagues were dug up
those
magazines, except as myth. after the Asama Mountain Villa Incident of 1972, a
Mention must be made of the seasonyear
of which happens to coincide with the approximate
rationality
time when postwar literature came to a close. As if in
which started to flourish from the latter half of he
1970s and lasted through the first half of the 1980s, reaction
a to the political years, the new generation's
cultural trend of the 1970s and 1980s swung toward
period which coincides with the decline of jun-
bungaku. So strong was its force that it overwhemledantipolitics. What Paz had pointed out about identical
intellectual journalism. Rationality was the fad amongsubcultural trends having global horizontal ties had
become apparent also in Tokyo.
new cultural theories, all of which were imported
It must be borne in mind that it was these events
from Europe and the United States. Here we must
which prepared the way for the advent of the season
not forget that the intellectuals who established post-
war literature were those who had been educated of rationality, a trend for new cultural ideas imported
fromathe United States and from Europe. Speaking
before or during the war years and had acquired
certain cultural sophistication. Almost all of themfor myself, I, as one writer, evaluate very highly the
had
diversified
been greatly influenced by cultural theories of West-
cultural thoughts springing forth from
structuralism, for they provide a strong and vital
ern Europe or of Russia, whose thoughts reached
incentive in the field of literature. Later I shall
Japan via Western Europe. The eyes and ears of
elaborate on one example of the effectiveness of its
Japanese intellectuals after the Meiji Restoration had
introduction. So strong has been its influence that I
always been directed toward the West. Rare speci-
am even tempted to offer a comparison of the diverse
mens among the postwar writers were Rinzo Shiina influences of the structuralism-based cultural ideas of
and Taijun Takeda. Instead of pursuing higher educa-
the seventies and eighties with the strong galvanizing
tion, Shiina spent his youth as a laborer. What pre-
influence Marxism had exercised on the Japanese
pared him for literature was his involvement in the
mentality when it flourished for a short time before
Marxist socialist movement, but what converted him the war.
from Marxism was his encounter with Dostoevsky. So great was the influx of new cultural theories
Takeda studied Chinese classical literature whilefollowing
Jap- the advent of structuralism that it appeared
anese imperialism was quickly preparing to invade they were going to permeate the whole of the nation's
China. Takeda was greatly influenced by Lu Xun, but
intellectual climate. An excellent summary of the
for him too Dostoevsky was a thinker without whom new cultural theories of the West, "Structure and
he would not have been able to establish his identity.Power" by a young scholar named Akira Asada, was
It is from these writers, and from others who read had everywhere on university campuses. The book
been influenced by Western literature and thought, sold equally well outside academe and became the
that postwar literature was born. Their methodology most widely read work by any of the postwar writers.
for delving deep into Japanese traditional thought "Structure and Power" was by no means easy read-
and culture was also, first of all, Western. Theing; same
however, no work ofjunbungaku published dur-
fact is evident when we examine the manner in which
ing that period was able to generate as much intellec-
Masao Maruyama established his school of Japanese tual interest among the younger generation. There
political thought. Maruyama was a salient contempo-followed a time in which many new French cultural
rary of the postwar writers. By studying those writ- ideas - some of which came via the U.S. - were intro-
ers, Maruyama in turn opened new horizons forduced and translated, including poststructuralism
them. The predilection for Western culture whichand postmodernism and particularly the work of
prevailed among the intellectuals who were the van-Barthes, Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Kristeva, and the
guard of Japanese modernization carried over to theYale School of deconstructionists. As far as transla-
generation that came after them and continued totions are concerned, aside from those works of mere
characterize their culture.
journalistic faddishness, works of sincere toil and
The Mexican thinker Octavio Paz marks 1968 as an
labor started to appear in the latter half of the 1980s.
extremely significant year and calls our attention Despite
to this fact, however, by then intellectual en-
the series of protest movements and riots that oc- thusiasm among the younger generation for these
curred in Prague, Chicago, Paris, Tokyo, Belgrade, new cultural thoughts had come to an end, as it had
Rome, Mexico City, and Santiago. Student riots within the realm of intellectual journalism which had
raged everywhere like a medieval plague, affecting staged, directed, and reflected that enthusiasm. I was
the populace regardless of religious denomination by or that time no longer a young writer and had never
social class, only on a broader scale. Because the riots
been part of that boom; but as I stand amid the wrack
were spontaneous, they were all the more universal, and ruin of the voluminous introductory works and
and Paz analyzed their significance in light of the translations and look back upon that age, I notice
situation in which all technological societies, East or
several interesting characteristics.

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 OE 365

the translatorstrue
First, the young Japanese intellectuals, and those
towhoourread the translations
national character, analyzed and systematized dia-manner. Such a
were inclined to think in the same
tendency exists eventheories
chronically the various structuralism-based today.
and also the criticisms thereof in order
Since the mostto "accept"
important skills required in the task
of introducing
and - to use an antonym not quite appropriate new cultural
for ideas
thiswere the abilities to
read the
word - "discharge" those theories. Forforeign language in which
acceptance of those thoughts
were presented and
Foucault, Barthes had to be discharged. to translate
Only after the works into Japa-
nese, the
Lacan was dismissed could Derrida be spokesmen
accepted for those
- but ideas were often spe-
only to await the next new thinker. cialistsThe
in literature or languages.
shuttling of Even when cultural
new cultural theories was, up to a theories
point, were anreplaced
easy in rapid succession, the re-
task
for the introducers and translators who advocated placement did not apply to the spokesmen, because
their influx. Cultural heroes came and went. How- they were not necessarily advocates - or critics, for
that matter - of what they spoke for. This fact
ever, the curtain dropped on new cultural trends in
our country as soon as these advocates found therebrought about the lukewarm situation whereby a
was no one thinker or cultural theory for them to handful of literature and language specialists became
shuttle on the American and European conveyor the importers of new cultural theories. Obviously,
belt. the responsibility does not rest solely with these
specialists. If the readers had read their introductions
At the height of the ongoing process of accepting
and discharging new cultural theories, very often and translations in a way that would have enabled
them to apply the new cultural theories in interpret-
such phrases as "the performance of ideas" or "the
ing Japan's reality, their understanding of these theo-
frolicking with texts" came to be used. Without hav-
ries would have been raised to a higher level. Such an
ing to refer to any authority on words, I believe that
understanding would have fostered the ability even
those expressions were indeed very appropriate ones
to offer feedback to the sources of those ideas. It
for those who could involve themselves only passively
would then not have been possible for each new
in coping with the kaleidoscope of ideas, for they
cultural theory itself and for those who had had a
were, by using those expressions, providing a defini-
hand in introducing it in Japan to remain free from
tion of their identities. Also, amid this cultural trend,
criticism. However, such was not the case. As soon as
a very Japanese connotation was added to the usage an introduction or translation was made, the one-way
of the prefix post-. By speaking of "poststructuralism"flow from Europe and America to Japan was com-
or "postmodernism," or even of cultural thoughts that pleted. That is to say, its "acceptance" and "dis-
were yet to come and for which they were unable to charge" was over. That is how the continual expecta-
envisage any positive ideas (although obviously wetion of new trends in theory became a convention.
could never expect them to do so, since all they did This tendency has produced another characteristic
was passively accept and then discharge), the young phenomenon in today's Japanese cultural climate:
Japanese intellectuals conjectured optimistically that, namely, the absence of any and all effort to accept a
insofar as some cultural theory was in existence, varietya of cultural thoughts synchronically. Never
new one would follow if they simply added the prefixhave we witnessed, in intellectual journalism in our
post- to the existing one. I am sure that there were country, the synchronic existence of two opposing
not a few young intellectuals who were stricken by a new schools of thought - for example, structuralism
series of self-destructive impulses when they learned and deconstructionism - and the resulting combina-
that the concept of "post-such-and-such" was in fact tion of antagonism and complementarity, which can
insubstantial and when, in turn, they learned that the lead, in turn, to a mutual deepening of the two
"such-and-such" thoughts in themselves meant very schools. That is why - with the exception of the archi-
little, if anything at all. tect Shin Isozaki, who in his works substantiated his
Second, despite this remarkable trend for absorb- criticism of postmodernism - the cultural anthropolo-
ing new cultural theories, almost no effort was made gist Masao Yamaguchi, the forerunner among intro-
to interpret them meticulously in view of specificducers of new cultural theories, stands out as unique
situations in which Japan found itself. Why then didand is now being subjected to a reappraisal. Going
the new cultural theories from Europe and the against the general trend, Yamaguchi, in his work
United States become so popular among the young "Periphery and Center," employed a structuralistic
intellectuals and in the realm of intellectual journal- methodology and provided substantiation for his
ism? This is indeed the strange part of the story.unique cultural interpretation of Japan's reality. In
However, I believe the phenomenon can be attrib-his discussion of postwar literature and its impor-
uted mostly to the special characteristic which our tance, his theory, together with its diverse implica-
nation's intellectual journalism had nurtured evertions, was extremely effective in clarifying the signifi-
since the Meiji Restoration. To put it very bluntly, cance of the emperor system. Yamaguchi had been
there was an inclination for people to think that an originally a specialist in monarchism, with field-study
intellectual effort had been accomplished merely by experience in Nigeria.
transplanting or translating the new American and Criticism arose claiming that, in any examination of
European cultural thoughts into Japanese; and both Japanese reality, placing importance on peripheral

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366 WORLD LITERATURE TODAY

cultures and energizing them will not lead

I began myto the
presentation by stating that Japanese
literature
reversal of the relationship between those is decaying and referred specifically to post-
peripheral
cultures and the central one. In other words, Yama-
war literature, which represents the highest level of
guchi's ideas were attacked as beingliterary
nonrevolution-
achievement since the Meiji Restoration and
thestimulating
ary. Critics of his theory asserted that onset of Japan's modernization. I also noted the
the
periphery would function effectively only
evident in of
decline estab-
Japanese literature at that highest
lishing a more solid central authority level
and -that
termed junbungaku in Japanese - and how
there-
various
fore the ideas in Yamaguchi's "Periphery andcultural
Center"theories and critical isms, which re-
placed was
were reactionary. A political short circuit junbungaku
the pithin capturing the minds of young
and the marrow of their critiques.intellectuals,
Their charges came to be accepted and discharged in a
overlooked the fact that Yamaguchi's manner quite peculiar to our nation. I believe what
structuralism
was one scrupulously calculated - that theseisphenomena
to say, that pointed to as a natural course of
he had something prepared for later events
whichwas the following situation. Young intellec-
a meth-
odology based on deconstructionism would
tuals during reveal.
the late seventies and early eighties felt
Because Yamaguchi's ideas in "Periphery and
the decline Cen- literature most keenly and fell
of Japanese
head over heels forbut
ter" were based on structuralist methodology new cultural theories from Eu-
from the outset coexisted synchronically
rope and with
America. criti-
In fact, so great was the number of
introductory
cism based on deconstructive methodology, books and translations that these
these
ideas were made even more profound, thus
seemed allowing
to outnumber each year's new literary works.
However,
them to bear more realistic validity. In enthusiasm for new cultural theories was
fact, Yamagu-
chi proved, by citing from Japanese short-lived,
mythology coming andand going after only a short
from literature of the Middle Ages craze.
various examples
of ways in which, despite the dichotomy In thebetween
context of the cultural climate of Jap
those who were driven away from societynew culturalinto the theories, as one organic part o
ture's (i.e.,
periphery and the chosen ones in the center decline,the fell prey to the general flow
imperial family), that the two often "blended together
decay faster than that of literature. I believe t
two phenomena - literature and its readers
like fresh ink spots on blotting paper."
one hand,
Although Yamaguchi's political thought and, on the other, new cultural
overlaps
with that of Yukio Mishima, the two andpoint
the young
at dia- intellectuals who accepted
should
metrically opposite poles. To be sure, be viewed not
Mishima, whoas dichotomous adversaries but
as one his
lamented the fact that the emperor made entity "blended together like fresh ink spots
"Human
Proclamation" after the defeat and who
oncalled
blottingfor the
paper."
Ind'etat
Self- Defense Forces to rise up in a coup a broader
as perspective,
the one can say that the
young
emperor's forces, sought to absolutize intellectuals
the emperor were not truly intellectuals as
system in the context of a cultural principle and in
such, but merely it Japanese living a subcultural
young
to seek a paradigm of political unity
fad in among theaverage consumer culture.
an urbanized,
Japanese. In short, if Yamaguchi's ideas as expounded
Moreover, if one were to extrapolate from the anal-
in "Periphery and Center" were toyses activate the which
of sociologists pe- point to the fact that the
ripheral aspects of Japanese culture and prevalent
that,middle-class
in turn, consciousness, though filled
were to result in the strengthening ofdisparities
with the center when seen- in light of the actual lives
namely, the emperor system - the resulting of the Japanese system
on the whole, is shared far and wide
would be totally different from the one Mishima
in Japan, one could say that such a phenomenon
advocated. What is more, Yamaguchi's emperor
attests sys-in comparison to the days of
to the fact that,
tem would never be the kind which the student
might riots, young
serve as a Japanese have indeed be-
guiding principle for the Self- Defense come conservative.
Forces Political scientists have attested
to carry
out a coup d'etat. When we reread to theYamaguchi's
fact that the conservative trend among the
cultural theory in light of contemporary youngerreality,
generation we in the large urban areas has
find that there is no room in his thought playedthat an important
would role in the recent landslide
allow for a political short circuit or a politicalvictory of reaction.
the ruling conservative party. What this
With its truly free laws of behavior, means is that signs of a conservative trend have
Yamaguchi's
ideas on culture, as evidenced also in to
begun his unique
emerge quite noticeably in the big cities,
"trickster" theory, left no room whatsoever where thefor bulkshort-
of the younger generation dwells; and
circuited criticism stemming from such uncompromising
signs will soon start to appear in small cities as
political ideologies. However, Yamaguchi's well, sinceprecurso-
the younger generation is conjoined by an
ry work leading to the rise in new urbanized culturalculture theories
that spans the nation.
was not followed up well by the introducers Now, the ofproblem,
these in the context of our discus-
theories - in other words, the cultural sion, heroes
is that thisofyounger
the generation, so closely con-
late seventies and early eighties. It joined subculturally
is precisely here on a nationwide level, is aban-
that we can find the means to illuminate the full doning literature. Moreover, this is the same younger
scope of the question I have raised. generation which promptly interred, as things of the

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 OE 367

past, the trend toward new cultural theories

to interpret which
those theories in lightinof Japan's reality
many respects overlapped with and culture.
the This sort of situation can
subcultural never occur in
fad
they embraced. Akira Asada's treatise
societies that "Structure and it can only
produce cultural theories;
Power" at one time became occur
a fad on university
in a country where the vast ocean separates it
campuses and occasionally was
from referred to asthose
the country that produces the
theories, where
"Asada phenomenon." I cannot thesimply
introduction dismiss this the
of theories follows asovercoming of
a mere fad, because it is possible for
linguistic such
barriers, where a trend
there exists a fad-sensitive
among the younger generation to merge
intellectual with
journalism that the
transmits those ideas, and
new cultural theories and then wherebear positive
there are receivers offruit.
what such journalism
transmits.
When we look back on the various culturalIn otherphenome-
words, with only a few excep-
tions, the
na, that is what actually occurred in Japanese
many were not able to establish a
countries
after World War II. However, cultural
as mentioned
theory of their ownearlier,
- something which could
that is not how things turnedhave outbeenin Japan.
realized if they had examined the theories
The postwar writers and those they
who created
imported in light cultural
of Japan's reality and culture.
theory for their contemporariesIf were
that had people
been done, who
the resulting
had feedback from
gone through the hardships of war.
such Their would
an examination being haveone
enabled the Japa-
with the younger generation enabled their
nese to establish works
a new cultural to of their own.
theory
effect a positive influence upon the
Though younger
Japan experienced genera-
a period of great enthusi-
tion, who sought a means of resuscitation at a
asm for new cultural difficult
theories, the theories essentially
had nothing
time in a society that had recently to do with
suffered Japan's reality
defeat. It and culture,
and we have
is thus that they were able to educate thetoday as a result
youth a situation
of a in which
generation which followed their those theories
own.have become as remote
Speaking for an existence as
myself, as far as literature isthey
concerned, itvery
had been from the is outset.
the
In light of thisfor
postwar writers who laid the foundations situation,
mywe see clearly what is
own
writing. As far as politics goes, lacking
the conservative party
in terms of cultural work that is being done by
has been monopolizing the political scene
Japanese today. for
Japan's a long beginning
modernization
time. However, I believe that with
thethe generation
Meiji Restoration which
had run into a fatal im-
overlapped with the readers of passepostwar
- namely, the literature
Pacific War - and culminated in
defeat. Upon
demonstrated its strength by casting very sincere
enough votesreflection,
for the Japanese
opposition-party members so searched
that for the various principles
latter won to guide them in
enough seats to keep the ruling
makingparty
a fresh, in check.
new start, and theThe
aim of the postwar
people's movement in 1960 to protest
writers wasthe ratification
to provide literary conviction and expres-
of the new Japan-U.S. Security
sionTreaty was However,
of such principles. a move-
the intellectuals of
the new generation,
ment which had actively incorporated those of the
the opinions of seventies and
the postwar writers and thoseeighties,
of the have cultural theo-
not followed up on these principles,
rists. It was a movement which nor
was have they takenas
equally a critical
power- stance toward them.
ful as, and more animated than,They
the hadopposition prog- such principles
no intention of developing
ressive parties and the labor unions.
in the first A comparison
place. ofgap between
There is indeed a wide
the political and cultural situation of
the postwar those and
intellectuals years - the younger
those of
generation,
i.e., twenty years ago - with that of today as is clear
shedswhenlight
we look at how the
on what it is exactly that has younger
beenintellectuals
lost and of thehow we
seventies and eighties, by
lost it. The light shines upon not
the road
probing along
into the various which
accomplishments of the
twenty years have taken us and also
postwar upon
writers or whatathey
very
tried to achieve, sev-
ered
symbolic phenomenon: literature any continuity
treading itswith the postwar
path to intellectuals.
wrack and ruin. Many of the postwar writers even went through
So, what is to be done? I, as a writer, think of whatthe bitter experience of fighting in the war as sol-
diers, and following defeat, they delved into the
the critical path has been and what it should be for
Japan and the Japanese from the standpoint of litera-matter of Japan's new direction, a direction contrary
ture. I believe that by reflecting on the cultural
to that which Japan had taken in her process of
climate of Japan in the latter half of the seventies and
modernization. In other words, they envisaged a way
the first half of the eighties, we can see therein for Japan to live as one nation in Asia, as one of the
glimpses of what course of action we should take.Third World nations in Asia. The path Japan had
What occurred during that period was the recurrence taken prior to the defeat was one in which she had set
of short cycles of introductions of new cultural theo-up the central nations of the world - namely, the
ries from America and Europe. It seemed that theU.S. and the European countries - as paradigms to
acceptance and discharge of those theories was gradu- follow. The postwar writers, however, envisaged a
ally accelerated, but in the end all enthusiasm forpath quite the contrary and aimed at establishing an
cultural theories died out. Although the diachronic, awareness of a principle in which Japan's place in the
one-dimensional acceptance and discharge of new world would be not in the center but on the periph-
cultural theories continued, no effort had been made ery. What the Japanese had abandoned in pursuing a

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368 WORLD LITERATURE TODAY

center-oriented modernization, theyouthspostwar by the young intellectuals who had pl

writers
endeavored to revive by also learning part in introducing new cultural theories
domestically
from Okinawa, which had a cultural tradition
readily of its
realized, if the latter make an effort to
own, and internationally from Korea, mine which
howwas thein-
theories ought to be interpret
stilling a typically Asian prosperitylight
and diversity.
of Japan's reality and culture, and also i
I would add that, as a writer who seekhas engaged
to learn in how to plan for the reconstruct
literary activities with the awareness that
that Ivery
carry on
reality and culture. Such a merger
the heritage of the postwar writers, bringI have
aboutwhile
direct, concrete results in energ
writing always borne in mind the island of Okinawa,
Japanese a
literature of the new generation.
peripheral region of Japan, and South Korea, a pe-
ripheral nation of the world - and inThe the topic
latter ofcase
our discussion, "The Challen
especially the works of the modern ThirdKorean poet Kim
World Culture," raises the very relevant
Chi Ha. Also, I have employed in my tion writing
of whetherthe Japanese culture can find a cl
image system of grotesque realism saving
as my itself
weapon.fromI the downward path to decline
would note as well that by considering the cultural
is so ominously portended by the decline in l
characteristics of the peripheral regions of IJapan
ture. and
can think of no people or nation as mu
those of Asia, I have trod a pathneed leadingof a to cluethe for self-recovery as the Japan
"relativization" of an emperor-centered culture.
neither among First In or Third World nations; no
that regard, I have chosen a course exactly the oppo-
people but the Japanese, whose culture evide
site of that taken by Mishima, who strived to absolu-
strange blending of First and Third World cu
tize the emperor system. My novel "Contemporary
no other people but the Japanese, who live
Games," which I completed at the end of the seven-
reality.
ties, is a work in which I aimed at creating a model
I would like to close by offering as a hint to the
regarding reality and culture for the kind of Japan I
Japanese intellectuals of the new generation a posi-
envisage.
tive directive for embarking upon their self-examina-
I believe that the problem Japanese literature faces
tion vis-a-vis our topic of our discussion. One reason
today lies in the fact that the attitude toward reality
why I decided to participate in this symposium is the
and culture which the postwar writers had nurtured
fact that I myself want to learn, for what I have talked
and which was followed up by the writers who came
to you about is a bigger question for me than for the
after them was severed completely by the young
young intellectuals. There is in Japan a poet and
intellectuals of the seventies and eighties. It was
writer of children's stories, Kenji Miyazawa, who had
amid such discontinuity in attitude toward reality and
been assigned
culture that the fad for new cultural ideas a peripheral place in contemporary
flourished.
literature and modern history but whose importance
Japan as a Third World nation has an ambiguous
is being recognized slowly but steadily. Miyazawa
place in the world and an ambiguous role to play. The
was born in Tohoku, a peripheral district of Japan.
young Japanese intellectuals had a still more ambigu-
Being an agronomist, he worked for the Tohoku
ous place in Japan and an equally ambiguous role to
farmers, who tilled the soil under adverse conditions.
play. An examination of these ambiguities
He was ain light
believer of Saddharma Pundarika Sutra.
in the
the new cultural theories and the providing of an
Under the influence of contemporary Western poetry
interpretation for them would have been a difficult
task but one well worth undertaking, for I believe it
he established a world of his own expression and
would have resulted in the developmentimagination.
of aHecultural
wrote prolifically while continuing to
work
theory unique to Japan; if not, at least itaswould
an agronomist,
have a profession he pursued until
his death automatic
taken us beyond the realm of the almost in 1933 at the age of thirty-seven. His
audience was not limited to readers of literature as
process of "accepting" and "discharging" imported
theories. such, and posthumously he has won - and is win-
ning -generation,
Among intellectuals of the present new an even wider spectrum of readers. Very re-
cently,
there are some who are taking an increased his epic children's story "The Night of the
interest
Galaxy Railway"
in the singularity of the Okinawan culture, was made into an excellent animated
and their
movie, increasing
interests correspond with the self-expression of his
the popularity even more. The
question of
new generation on Okinawa. Many young Japanese what is genuine people's literature has
been a topic of
who participated in the protest movement debate
for the throughout modern and con-
release of the poet Kim Chi Ha stilltemporary
empathize Japanese
withliterature, but now people have
started to realize thatof
the grass-roots movements for the democratization it is Miyazawa who deserves to
South Korea. There is also a movement to keep
the fullest degree a "Writer of People's Litera-
the title
ture." Sixty years
close watch on Japan's economic aggression ago, at the dawn of the Showa era
against
(1926-), Miyazawa
the Philippines and other Asian nations. The youthswrote a treatise titled "Outline of
involved in that movement are now theseeking
Essentials of
anPeasant
alli- Art," which epitomizes his
ance on a grass-roots level with theideas both as an
younger agronomist and as a writer. I shall
genera-
tion of other nations. A joining of close
hands with its
by quoting such
opening paragraph:

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 YOSHIDA 369

We are all farmers - we are so busy then andthe our work

universe. Isn'tis
this the path the saints of yore
tough. trod and taught us?
We want to find a way to live a more lively and The new age is headed in a direction in which the
cheerful life. world shall be one and will become a living entity.
There were not a few among our very ancient fore- To live strong and true is to become aware of the
fathers who did live that way. galaxy within ourselves and to live according to its
I wish to hold discussion where there is communion dictates.
among the facts of modern science, the experiments of Let us search for true happiness of the world - the
the seekers of truth, and our intuition. search for the path is in itself the path.
One person's happiness cannot be realized unless all
the world is happy. Tokyo
The awareness of the ego starts with the individual and
gradually evolves to that of the group, the society, and First Publication

An Interview with Kenzaburo Oe

By SANROKU YOSHIDA The following interview scholars of English literature, sociologists, physicists,
took place on 7 June or well-known writers, seldom paid serious attention
1986 at Kenzaburo Oe's to such things - except for a handful of fine scholars
such as Kazuo Watanabe, Masao Maruyama, and
residence in Tokyo. The text was translated into
Professor Shuichi Kato. The situation now is about
English from the Japanese and edited by the inter-
viewer with the permission of Mr. Oe. The researchsame.
the
and the trip to Japan for this interview were sup-Four or five years ago, when American medium-
ported by a 1986 summer research grant from therange nuclear missiles put Europe in a very precar-
Faculty Research Committee of Miami University ious position, an antinuclear movement spread from
Europe to the United States. When there are such
and by a 1986 travel grant from the Northeast Asia
Council of the Association for Asian Studies. fervid antinuclear movements in Europe and the
United States, Japanese intellectuals tend to follow
SY: I met with Yotaro Konaka yesterday. He said that their lead. Therefore, we had a large-scale anti-
recently Japanese society has created a peculiar mood nuclear movement in Japan at that time. Now very
in which it is rather difficult to discuss matters anti- little is going on. I have not been influenced by these
nuclear, and that one may be considered childish or ups and downs of the movements. I do what I have to
immature if one is antinuclear. The major theme of do in writing my novels arid critical essays.
your "Flood unto My Soul" (1973), "The Pinchrun- If Japanese critics say it is childish and naive to
ner" (1976), and other works is the deracination of oppose nuclear weapons, let me tell you the follow-
mankind by nuclear holocaust. As the author of these ing: the American political scientist George Kennan,
novels, do you agree with such an assessment of thewhose judgment I trust, argues in his book The
social climate? Nuclear Delusion that political figures and nuclear-
KO: I published a book called Hiroshima Notes (1965; weapons experts always ridicule antinuclear move-
ments as manifestations of naivete or childishness.
Eng. 1981) twenty-three years ago. So it has been
about a quarter of a century since I started to think However, it is the naivete of the expert, in both
about "Hiroshima." During that time, I have partici- diplomacy and nuclear weapons, that makes the exis-
pated in the activities of a group called the Japan tence of the world precarious. This is what George
Confederation of A-Bomb and H-Bomb Sufferers Or- Kennan says, and I think this is also true in Japan. So
ganizations; I have written and spoken in public in there is no need to keep silent when you are called
"childish." To be frank, I have to admit that there is
support of such movements as "Abolishment of Nu-
clear Weapons" and "Relief for Victims"; I have perhaps something indeed quite childish about Japa-
nese antinuclear movements. Nonetheless, one must
organized committees and councils for these move-
ments as well; yet I do not think things are partic- try to embody one's ideals in one's works. If you don't
ularly difficult today. Twenty-four or twenty-five do this, and you are called "childish," it is in part
years ago, they were difficult - oh, well, not really your own fault.
difficult, but I was not supported by the majority of SY: In your works, Mr. Oe, there are many themes
Japanese intellectuals. Many victims talked at those that had not been treated in Japanese literature be-
meetings, and they wrote about their ordeals. Nev- fore. When you started writing fiction, some readers
ertheless, Japanese scholars, whether they were were shocked because of your unique style, new

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