Oe Kenzaburo was made a writer by a family crisis

The house where Oe Kenzaburo lived in Tokyo was a modest, tranquil place. Red maples and roses filled the garden, and paintings by his wife Yukari hung on the walls. The living room, crammed with books, was where he worked, sitting in an armchair to write in longhand on a board across his knees. But he was not alone. Also there was a man three decades younger, who sat sorting and re-sorting his collection of cds and listening to music. He had a misshaped skull, a squint and a shy, sweet smile. His father kept an eye on him even as he wrote, ready to help at once, watchful for seizures. This was Hikari, his eldest son.

The birth of Hikari, in 1963, had been the greatest crisis in his life. He and Yukari were horrified at the sight of him, a baby with a cranial hernia so huge that he seemed to have two heads. Without an operation, the child would die. With one, he would still be profoundly handicapped. The dilemma was so acute that Kenzaburo could only run away, towards “some other horizon”.