Nobel Prize-Winning Author Kenzaburo Oe Dies at 88

Tokyo, March 13 (Jiji Press)--Japanese author Kenzaburo Oe, who won the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature, died of old age on March 3. He was 88. He was the second Japanese to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, after Yasunari Kawabata in 1968. Born in present-day Uchiko, Ehime Prefecture, western Japan, Oe made his debut as an author while studying French literature at the University of Tokyo. He won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for "Prize Stock" in 1958. He became a standard-bearer for literature in the post-World War II democratic era, earning public acclaim with works such as his 1961 novel "Seventeen," which depicts the thoughts and feelings of a right-wing youth. After the birth of his eldest son, Hikari, who has a mental disability, Oe published "A Personal Matter" in 1964. In 1967, he won the Tanizaki Prize for "The Silent Cry," a story of human rebirth in a village deep in a forest. END