SOURCE: Ōe, Kenzaburō. “An Attempt at Self-Discovery in the Mythic Universe of the Novel.” World Literature Today 76, no. 1 (winter 2002): 6-18.

In the following essay, Ōe discusses his attitude toward and utilization of the “I-novel” form and reviews significant influences on his life and work.

Looking back upon my literary career, I would say that, from the outset, the setting of my literature has been my native village in a small valley deep in the forests of Shikoku, one of Japan's four main islands. The village is roughly in the central part of the island, just north of the watershed of the Shikoku Mountain Range. The premonition of a young writer is all I can say that prompted me to start writing about my native village. In the beginning, I wrote without much perspective that the village would later occupy a large core part of my literature.

My first...