Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel laureate for literature, dies at 88

March 13 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994, has died this Monday at the age of 88 of natural causes.

“He died of old age in the early morning of March 3,” the Kodansha publishing house reported in a statement, adding that a family funeral has already been held.

The writer, one of the most important contemporary Japanese novelists, was born in 1935 in Ehime Prefecture and studied French Literature at the University of Tokyo. Likewise, he has stood out for his active role in the postwar democratic generation, opposing militarism and defending pacifism.

In 1958 he finished his first novel, ‘Take the seeds, shoot the children’, set in wartime, becoming one of his best-known titles.

Years later, in 1994 he would become the second Japanese -and last for the moment- to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, “for his poetic strength”, after Yasunari Kawabata won this award in 1968.