Celebrated writer Kenzaburo Oe, whose death earlier this month was reported Monday, lived for his causes.
As a public figure, Oe leaves behind a legacy of political confrontation. He was an activist, an ardent pacifist, ¡°an anarchist who love(d) democracy¡± and a fierce opponent of nuclear energy. For readers of his fiction, however, it is perhaps the searching confusion of parenthood that resounds most strongly.
Oe¡¯s son Hikari, one of three children, was born in 1963 with a brain hernia, and the operation that followed left him developmentally challenged.
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