In the wake of Kawabata Yasunari in 1968, e was only the second Japanese writer to receive the Nobel Prize for literature. He has paid many visits overseas, giving lectures and participating in literary symposia and seminars, and in addition to his studies of literature he has been one of the most internationally minded writers in Japan today. His works have been translated into English, German, French, and several other languages. In this manner, e, though his origins are in the margins of Japanese society, has become an international writer by virtue of a literary imagination born of ceaseless effort.
e Kenzabur was born the fifth of seven children of a merchant in se-mura, Ehime Prefecture, on 31 January 1935. se-mura is a small village in a ravine deep in the mountains of Shikoku, the smallest of the four main islands of Japan, and can certainly be characterized as lying in the "margins" of the country. At the time e was born, premodern myths and legends still played a vibrant role in the daily lives of the villagers. He was raised hearing these tales from his grandmother and other elderly members of the village. It was the density of the natural setting on the fringes and these myths and legends that shaped e's fundamental sensibilities.
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