Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel Prize winner for literature, dies at the age of 88

The novelist Kenzaburo Oe, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994 and was distinguished for his writings outside the well-established traditions in Japan, has died at the age of 88, according to what the Kodansha publishing house announced on Monday.

Oye “passed away of old age in the early hours of March 3,” the publishing house said in a statement, adding that he was buried at a family funeral.

Uwe, who was famous for his pacifist and anti-nuclear views, considered himself from a generation of writers who were “deeply wounded” by World War II, “but nevertheless full of hope for a new birth.”

Influenced by French and American literary culture, his spiritual stories touch on various issues, from concepts of disability to the difference between village traditions and big city life.