Kenzaburō Ōe (大江 健三郎, Ōe Kenzaburō^?, born January 31, 1935) is a Japanese author and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His works, 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 Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994 for creating "an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today."

Ōe was born in Ōse (大瀬村, Ōse-mura^?), a village now in Uchiko, Ehime Prefecture on the island of Shikoku in Japan. He was the third son of seven children. Ōe's grandmother taught him art and oral performance. His grandmother died in 1944, and later that year, Ōe's father died in the Pacific War. Ōe's mother took over his father's role as educator. The books she bought him - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Wonderful Adventures of Nils - left him with an impression Ōe says 'he will carry to the grave'.^{[citation needed]}