Kenzaburo Oe was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for creating "an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today." In Death by Water, his recurring protagonist and literary alter-ego returns to his hometown village in search of a red suitcase fabled to hold documents revealing the details of his father's death during WWII: 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, Kogito is revitalized by revisiting his formative work and he finds the will to continue investigating his father's demise.
Diving into the turbulent depths of legacy and mortality, Death by Water is an exquisite examination of resurfacing national and personal trauma, and the ways that storytelling can mend political, social, and familial rifts.
- In the News
- Read-Along eBooks for Children
- Get Hooked on a Series- eBook
- Graphic Novels & Comics
- Living on the Edge
- Is It True Dukes Have More Fun?
- Danielle Steel eBooks
- True Stories of World War II
- Biographies of Early Americans - eBooks
- Shifting Sands
- Children's Picture Books
- Mysteries You Might Have Missed
- Kids' Mysteries
- See all
- Read by the Author
- Short Stories for Short Commutes
- Have You Listened to the Most Popular Titles in the Collection?
- Audiobooks the Whole Family Will Enjoy...
- Historical Fiction on Audio
- Get Hooked on a Series- Audio
- Audiobooks You Might Have Missed
- Listen and Learn
- Listen & Learn: Science Nonfiction
- The Girls of Audiobooks
- Book 'em!
- Celebrity Biographies - Audiobooks
- Listen to Your Heart
- See all
- 2019 Ladybug Picture Book Award Nominees
- 2017 Library Reads
- 2018 Library Reads
- NHPR Great 2017 Reads - eBooks
- NHPR Great 2017 Reads - audiobooks
- Book Shimmy Awards
- Isinglass Teen Read Award
- Flume Titles Throughout the Years
- Great Stone Face 2016-2017
- Not Necessarily Award Winners: Books for Boys
- Outstanding Titles for Middle Graders
- Great Stone Face 2017-2018
- Edgar Award Winners
- See all
- Enjoy a Digital Magazine!
- Home & Garden
- Technology
- Cooking, Health, and Fitness Magazines
- Travel Magazines
- See all