Personal Experience (World Literature Library)

Author: (Japanese) Daisaku Ikeda Wang Zhongchen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-01
Features: The Nobel Prize-winning author Daisaku Ikeda enjoys a high reputation in the world literary scene. This collection of his works maturely incorporates Western modernist literary techniques while fully utilizing the imagination of traditional Japanese literature, skillfully blending reality and fiction to express profound social concern. Daisaku Ikeda entered the literary world during his university years. Since his debut novel, "Volcano," was published in the Tokyo University magazine Gakuen in 1955, his literary journey has spanned over four decades. However, to trace the origin of his literary path and the source of his imagination, one must return to a small village in Japan. On December 7, 1994, when Daisaku Ikeda delivered his Nobel Prize acceptance speech at the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, he first spoke of his hometown village. The Personal Experience is the author's transformation of his own spiritual ordeal into a literary work. The suffering from nuclear radiation and the birth of deformed children can both be seen as disasters beyond human control. Faced with such immense adversity, how should one survive? Father Taro, a victim of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, and the father of a disabled child face the same challenge. The birth of a disabled child serves as a harsh mirror, reflecting the psychological disabilities of modern people. In The Personal Experience, the young father Taro struggles with the reality of his disabled child, experiencing turmoil and even contemplating ending the child's life. Ultimately, he undergoes a spiritual crucible and bravely accepts the reality, determined to forge a path of coexistence with his disabled child, achieving spiritual rebirth. This book first introduces the anxieties of existence and the construction of the soul, followed by the chapters The Personal Experience, Football in the Year of Bunkan, Rearing, The Human Sheep, and Sexual Humanity.