Ôe, Africa, and Mr. Delchef: Non-Aligning Japan

Moderated by: Kim Brandt, Research Scholar, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University

Ōe Kenzaburō’s 1964 novel A Personal Matter begins with the protagonist looking at a map of Africa. What does this opening scene have to do with the novel’s intrigue, which involves a baby, Soviet nuclear tests, and a peculiar Balkan diplomat? The beginnings of an answer are in Ōe’s work with the Tokyo-based Committee for African and Asian Writers and his contributions to its magazine, Asia-Africa Bulletin, which connect his most famous novel to a less known concern with the decolonization of Asia and Africa. Professor Hill argues that A Personal Matter outlined a new way of understanding Japan’s positionality in the postwar world. In Ōe’s view, the role of the Japanese state in the U.S.-Soviet confrontation defined Japanese intellectuals’ Sartrean “situation”—the position in which they had to act—but did not limit the non-aligned alliances with other parts of the world that they could imagine for themselves and the country. On the contrary, imaginative non-alignment and situated ethical and political action, including opposition to atomic weapons, supported each other.

This event is organized by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University.