One month after his death, scholars in different parts of the world are reflecting on acclaimed author Kenzaburo Oe, whose political and international engagement make him an enduringly relevant voice of modern Japanese literature.

Oe won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994, using his platform as what he called a "postwar democrat" and pacifist to critique the dangers of ultranationalism, nuclear power and the imperial system throughout his career.

File photo shows Kenzaburo Oe during an interview at his home in Tokyo in July 2015. (Kyodo)

In tribute to his legacy, three scholars of Japanese literature discussed some definitive works to show how he captured the complex struggles of being human.

Speaking to Kyodo News, Antonin Bechler, an associate professor with a doctorate in Japanese studies at the University of Strasbourg, said Oe's writing shows a unique understanding of the underlying violence of postwar Japanese history and society.

A key example is his 1961 novella "Seventeen": a psychological portrayal of Japan's lost and frustrated youth, who were reeling from the defeat of World War II and the sudden change in societal values that entailed.

Originally serialized in two parts, "Seventeen" depicts a 17-year-old boy who joins a right-wing party due to his desire to gain confidence and strength, only to end up assassinating a socialist party leader and eventually committing suicide in jail.

The second part's parallels with the real-life assassination of socialist leader Inejiro Asanuma by a 17-year-old ultranationalist who subsequently hanged himself in jail -- just months before the novella's publication -- angered Japan's far right, causing the story to be absent from many subsequent Oe anthologies for fear of retaliation.

Bechler says Oe's upbringing amid the imperialist fervor of wartime enabled him to portray how his generation could be attracted to such danger and the deeply ingrained desire to die for a greater cause.

"Many years later, Oe admitted it was easy for him to write it because that young guy could have been him. He had to exorcize those inner demons so he would never again be able to write positively about those ideas and deeds," Bechler said.

Reiko Abe Auestad, a professor at the University of Oslo, says Oe's ability to test his ideas through literature is part of what makes him so fascinating.

This can be seen in 1967's "The Silent Cry," which demonstrates how his fiction sometimes contradicts his ideological standpoint as an intellectual, according to Auestad.

One important idea Oe developed in his early career was that humans fall under two rough types: the sober "political" human, who has a strong internal moral compass, and the hotheaded "sexual" person, who depends on powers outside themselves, such as an ideological cause, to determine right from wrong, she said.

"The Silent Cry" shows two brothers seemingly representing these categories, with the older, level-headed Mitsusaburo always trying to correct the younger Takashi's romantic and narrow view of history -- demonstrated by his desire to recreate their ancestor's "heroic" deeds.

While Oe's essays suggest he would side more with the rational Mitsusaburo, Auestad says, the novel's revelation that Takashi was right about some aspects of the past suggests that, in reality, a more emotionally engaged and proactive response to history may sometimes be necessary.

"I suspect this is Oe's ironic take on himself as a leftist intellectual who thinks so much about what could possibly go wrong. And if you do that, you end up not taking action," Auestad said.

Another prominent aspect of Oe's literature is how he fictionalized elements of his own life to explore events that might have happened had he taken a different path.

Filippo Cervelli, a lecturer at SOAS University of London who holds a doctorate in oriental studies, cites "Letters to My Nostalgic Years" (1987) as one work dealing with Oe's identity as a "peripheral" writer from rural Shikoku, who never fully returned to his birthplace after moving to the cultural "center" of Tokyo as a student.

The novel follows two friends from a village modeled on his hometown. While one leaves for Tokyo to become a famous author like Oe himself, the other remains behind to stage a failed environmentalist revolution.

However, Cervelli says, the friend who stayed behind in Shikoku was never based on real life, making him the imagined version of an Oe who never left for Tokyo.

Japanese novelist Kenzaburo Oe is pictured after attending the award ceremony for the 1994 Nobel Prize recipients in Stockholm in December 1994. Oe, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, known for being a proponent of Japan's pacifist Constitution and against nuclear power, died of old age on March 3, 2023. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo

"When Oe writes about his own life, it is never merely a confession or a way of laying bare his secrets -- it is a literary exploration which always creates something new," Cervelli said.

"Letters" also demonstrates Oe's extensive engagement with foreign authors and influences due to its use of medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" as a commentary on the main narrative.

Cervelli says this dialogue with world literature makes him stand out among contemporary Japanese writers, along with his commitment to sharing the beauty and significance of foreign works.

"Oe dedicated his life to showing that as a writer engaged with the world around him -- both politically and culturally -- he also had responsibility to comment on his own society," Cervelli said.

Bechler says Oe's engagement with international crises is shown by his decision to have the second part of "Seventeen" translated into French and German in response to the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks; it also appeared in his final career anthology.

"He is one of the most international Japanese writers ever," Bechler said. "This is something a lot of Japanese artists today could take a hint from...when thinking about how Japan can move forward in these difficult times."

Auestad says Oe's acceptance of the Nobel Prize was a game changer in recognizing a writer who did not fit the classic "Orientalist" stereotypes about Japanese literature abroad.

After receiving the accolade, he famously rejected an Order of Culture from the Japanese government, saying he would "never in my lifetime or after accept an award from any state." The decision, he said, came down to his being a "postwar democrat" -- a mindset he felt was not compatible with the national award.

"I think the Swedish Academy said he was awarded that prize among others for not forgetting the lessons of Japanese history," Auestad said. "That is considered to be one of his great contributions as a writer."

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