Novel
同時代ゲーム
Not translated into English
Kenzaburo Oe · 1979
Synopsis
The narrator, son of a Shinto priest, addresses his twin sister to tell her the mythology and history of their village, according to the publisher Shinchōsha's presentation. Banished samurai, having set out to sea, sailed up a river and founded in the mountains of Shikoku a village that is at once a country and a world in miniature, with its creation myth, its goddess of fertility and a cunning healer called the Destroyer. After a long era of freedom, the community goes to war against the Empire, a fifty-day war against the imperial army.
Context
The novel appeared in 1979 at Shinchōsha and was reissued in paperback in 1984; the publisher presents it as a narrative of nearly a thousand sheets. It was born from a mural by Diego Rivera; it is cited among the examples of magical realism in Japan, and its language put off even a great critic, who said he had stopped at the second page. The French translation sometimes given for this book is that of another novel by the author, published in 1967.
Who it is for
A long, dense novel, for readers who accept a difficult language and a mythology that builds up as it goes.
Prizes and reception
No French or English translation has appeared, and it remains one of its author's books reputed to be most difficult.
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