Kenzaburō Ōe vs. Jean-Paul Sartre
Side-by-side comparison of two thinkers
Kenzaburō Ōe
1935 – 2023
Kenzaburō Ōe was a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His novels, short stories and essays, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues, including nuclear weapons, nuclear power, social non-conformism, and existentialism. Ōe was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature for creating "an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today".
"To repeat the error by exhibiting, through the construction of nuclear reactors, the same disrespect for human life is the worst possible betrayal of the memory…"
Jean-Paul Sartre
1905 – 1980
French existentialist philosopher, playwright, and activist.
"It answers the question that was tormenting you: my love, you are not 'one thing in my life' - not even the most important - because my life no longer belongs t…"
Connections
Both wrote about: