SOURCE: Iwamoto, Yoshio. Review of A Healing Family, by Kenzaburō Ōe. World Literature Today 71, no. 3 (summer 1997): 653-54.

In the following review, Iwamoto commends Ōe's sensitive and poignant exploration of his relationship with his mentally and physically handicapped son, Hiraki, in A Healing Family.

The relationship between Kenzaburo Ōe and his mentally and physically handicapped son Hikari has furnished the author with the materials and inspiration for countless works—short stories, novels, lectures, commentaries, and essays. From the novel A Personal Matter (1964; Eng. 1968) to the collection of nonfiction short pieces A Healing Family (orig. 1995) under review here, the subject matter has been treated with an astonishing variety of perspectives. Another recently translated Ōe novel, A Quiet Life (1990; Eng. 1996), for example, is narrated by the author's daughter, who is left to care for her brother when their parents spend an extended period at the University of California in Berkeley.

In...