An Echo of Heaven - Softcover

Oe, Kenzaburo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 477002505X ISBN 13: 9784770025050

Publisher: Kodansha Amer Inc, 2000

Synopsis

A group of Mexicans sit in the desert, gazing up at the image of their new saint--a seductive woman with a smile like Betty Boop's--projected onto an outdoor screen. The woman is Marie Kuraki, recruited to act the part of a "sorrowing mother," to help unite the workers on a cooperative farm in a remote village in Mexico.

By becoming a "saint," Marie, an unbeliever in search of spiritual peace, reaches the end of a long journey induced by a series of personal tragedies: above all, by the death of her two sons, which happened when one of them was pushing his brother in a wheelchair along a path above a cliff by the sea.

To rebuild her life, Marie leaves her home in Japan to go to a commune in California, under the shy guidance of a guru called Little Father; then on to Mexico, where she falls briefly under the spell of the Dark Virgin of Guadalupe; and finally to a mountain village in the shadow of an Aztec pyramid. There she offers what's left of her life to the local people, who come to venerate her, though her own faith remains as enigmatic as before.

An Echo of Heaven presents an astonishingly fresh and penetrating portrait of a woman of independent character and strong physical appetites, looking for a way to understand the mystery of her life. It is a work by a Nobel Prize-winning writer at the height of his powers.

About this title

Review:

In An Echo of Heaven, Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe tells the riveting story of Marie Kuraki, a seductive, perverse intellectual whose two young sons, one retarded and one crippled, commit suicide. Thus begins Marie's intellectual, spiritual, and sexual journey to find meaning in this horrific tragedy. Oe, who draws a provocative but sympathetic portrait of Marie, supplements his narrative with old letters and journal entries from those whose lives she influenced.

Oe's prose (as translated by Margaret Mitsutani) is cold and precise, perhaps to maintain emotional distance since Oe himself has a mentally handicapped son. The description of Marie's quest also affords him the opportunity to engage in profound reflections on faith, sin, death, sexuality, heaven, and hell. --Madeline Crowley

About the Author:

Kenzaburo Oe was born in 1935 in a village in Shikoku, an island off the southwest coast of mainland Japan. After studying French literature at Tokyo University, he won his first literary award-the coveted Akutagawa Prize-for a short story, "The Catch." A writer committed to both literary and humanitarian causes, his output has included (in English) A Personal Matter, The Silent Cry, Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, The Pinch Runner Memorandum, and Nip the Buds, Kill the Kids. These and other works of his have been widely translated, not only in Europe and Russia but in several Asian countries.

Oe, who won the Nobel Prize in 1994, lives in Tokyo with his wife and three children.

About this edition

• Publisher: Kodansha Amer Inc
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 477002505X
• ISBN 13: 9784770025050
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208