Death by water
By: Kenzaburo Oe ; translated from the Japanese by Deborah Boliver Boehm
Contributors: Boehm, Deborah Boliver, translator
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Published: 2015
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 424
ISBN-13: 9780857895455; 9780857895479
Copyright date: 2009
Subjects: Japanese Novelists; Fiction; Fathers and sons; Fathers; Death
Work titles: Suishi
Description: Kogito Choko returns to his hometown village in search of a red suitcase rumored to hold documents revealing the details of his father's death during World War II, details that will serve as the foundation for his new, and final, novel. Since his youth, renowned novelist Kogito Choko planned to fictionalize his father's fatal drowning in order to fully process the loss. Stricken with guilt and regret over his failure to rescue his father, Choko has long been driven to discover why his father was boating on the river in a torrential storm. Though he remembers overhearing his father and a group of soldiers discussing an insurgent scheme to stage a suicide attack on Emperor Mikado, Choko cannot separate his memories from imagination and his family is hesitant to reveal the entire story. When the contents of the trunk turn out to offer little clarity, Choko abandons the novel in creative despair. Floundering as an artist, he's haunted by fear that he may never write his tour de force. But when he collaborates with an avant-garde theater troupe dramatizing his early novels, Choko is revitalized by revisiting his formative work and he finds the will to continue investigating his father's demise.
Notes: Originally published as Suishi by Kodansha in 2009.--t.p. verso.

Translated from the Japanese.