SOURCE: Goff, Janet. Review of Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself: The Nobel Prize Speech and Other Lectures, by Kenzaburō Ōe. Japan Quarterly 42, no. 3 (July-September 1995): 355-56.

In the following positive review of Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself, Goff comments that all four lectures in the collection “reflect Ōe's abiding concern for the role of the writer in society and the place of Japan in the modern world.”

This publication honoring Japan's new Nobel laureate [Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself] reproduces four lectures by Ōe, including his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. All four lectures reflect Ōe's abiding concern for the role of the writer in society and the place of Japan in the modern world.

In the first lecture, “Speaking on Japanese Culture before a Scandinavian Audience” (1992), Ōe reminisces about European writings that have stimulated his lifelong fascination with “travel and faraway places.” He points out the relationship between foreign...