SOURCE: "Kenzaburo Oe of Japan Wins Nobel in Literature," in The New York Times, October 14, 1994, pp. B1, B10.

[In the following article, Sterngold reports on the Swedish Academy's decision to award Ōe the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature.]

The Swedish Academy announced today [October 14, 1994] in Stockholm that Kenzaburo Oe, a Japanese writer known for his powerful accounts of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and his struggle to come to terms with a mentally handicapped son, had won the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Mr. Oe, 59, is just the second Japanese writer to capture the award. Yasunari Kawabata won it in 1968. But while Mr. Kawabata generally explored traditional Japanese themes with a delicate writing style, Mr. Oe has written politically charged tales filled with anger and a sense of betrayal, like the postwar generation he has come to represent.

Mr. Oe (pronounced OH-ay) came of age during the American occupation, after...