The Silent Cry - Kenzaburō Ōe

Category: Literature, Novel, Political
Language: English
Keywords: 1960's Brothers Japanese Literature

Written by Kenzaburō Ōe
Read by Kevin Shen
Format: M4B
Bitrate: 128 Kbps
Unabridged

In Oe’s masterpiece of the human condition and family psychology, estranged brothers Mitsusaburo and Takashi have long since left their family home in a remote forested valley on Shikoku, in the south of Japan: Mitsusaburo for work in Tokyo; his younger brother Takashi for the United States, to atone for his part in anti-American student protests.

Takashi’s return to Japan coincides with a local Korean supermarket magnate’s offer to buy the brothers’ ancestral storehouse, pitting the brothers against one another and dredging up family histories best forgotten.

The Silent Cry is the most important Japanese work of the post-war period and a strange, unsettling tale of how the call of blood and history echoes down the generations.

Translated by John Bester

Original title: 万延元年のフットボール Man’en gan’nen no futtoboru (Football in the First Year of Man’en)

11 hrs and 56 mins
July 1, 2026