Kenzaburo Oe was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994. He was born on the Japanese island of Shikoku in 1935. He is regarded as one of the most important post World War II Japanese authors and has been called the first truly modern Japanese author. An excerpt from Oe’s next novel Arise Ye Young Men, title inspired by William Blake, recently appeared in The New Yorker.

Luk Van Haute is the translator of 17 & J. He lived in Japan for six years. While there he served a fellowship at the University of Tokyo for two years, researching contemporary Japanese literature, with a focus on Kenzaburo Oe.