“The destination of the soul: this is what I, led on by Nils Holgersson, came to seek in the literature of Western Europe.”

— Kenzaburō Ōe

Speech at the Nobel Banquet (10 December 1994) http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1994/oe-speech.html
Context: The destination of the soul: this is what I, led on by Nils Holgersson, came to seek in the literature of Western Europe. I fervently hope that my pursuit, as a Japanese, of literature and culture will, in some small measure, repay Western Europe for the light it has shed upon the human condition.

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Kenzaburō Ōe 43

Japanese author 1935

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