A Personal Matter

From the Nobel Prize–winning author: "One of the great short novels of the 20th century" (Jonathan Franzen, The Wall Street Journal ). Internationally acclaimed as one of the world's most influential writers, Kenzaburō Ōe brings to the fore the post-WWII rage and anxiety of a decorous society in this "deathly black comedy . . dripping with nuclear terror" ( The Japan Times ). Bird is an antisocial twenty-seven-year-old intellectual hanging on to a failing marriage with whiskey. He dreams of going to Africa where the sky sprawls with possibilities. Then, as though walloped by a massive invisible fist, Bird's Utopian fantasies are shattered when his wife gives birth to what he calls their "monster baby." Now, Bird is left with one question: How can he and his wife spend the rest of their lives with this damaged thing clinging to their backs? As shameful, disgraceful, and unthinkable a desire as it is, Bird has an answer. Not sealed. Not just yet. Not before Bird flees on a bender of indiscriminate (and frustratingly impotent) sex, hard liquor, self-delusion, and most terrifying of all -- self-discovery. "[I'd] forgotten just how crazy it is . . It feels so much like life to me . . it tells me that Ōe is onto something correct. People don't want to deal with reality." -- Jonathan Franzen, The Wall Street Journal "Very close to a perfect contemporary novel." -- The New York Times "An astonishing novel." -- Mother Jones

From the Nobel Prize–winning author: "One of the great short novels of the 20th century" ( The Wall Street Journal ). Internationally acclaimed as one of the world's most influential writers, Kenzabur? ?e brings to the fore the post-WWII rage and anxiety of a decorous society in this "deathly black comedy... dripping with nuclear terror" ( The Japan Times ). Bird is an antisocial twenty-seven-year-old intellectual hanging on to a failing marriage with whiskey. He dreams of going to Africa where the sky sprawls with possibilities. Then, as though walloped by a massive invisible fist, Bird's Utopian fantasies are shattered when his wife gives birth to what he calls their "monster baby." Now, Bird is left with one question: How can he and his wife spend the rest of their lives with this damaged thing clinging to their backs? As shameful, disgraceful, and unthinkable a desire as it is, Bird has an answer. Not sealed. Not just yet. Not before Bird flees on a bender of indiscriminate (and frustratingly impotent) sex, hard liquor, self-delusion, and most terrifying of all—self-discovery. "Very close to a perfect contemporary novel." — The New York Times "An astonishing novel." — Mother Jones

Kenzaburo oe, the winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature, is internationally acclaimed as one of the most important and influential post-World War II writers, known for his powerful accounts of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and his own struggle to come to terms with a mentally handicapped son. The Swedish Academy lauded oe for his "poetic force [that] creates an imagined world where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today." His most popular book, A Personal Matter is the story of Bird, a frustrated intellectual in a failing marriage whose Utopian dream is shattered when his wife gives birth to a brain-damaged child. "In writing novels there is no substitute for maturity and moral awareness. Kenzaburo oe has both."'Alan Levensohn, Christian Science Monitor