Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness

Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness Synopsis

The Nobel Prizewinning ';master of the bizarre plunges the reader into a world of tortured imagination' in this four-novella collection (Library Journal). In this startling quartet of his most provocative stories, the multiple prize-winning author of A Personal Matter reaffirms his reputation as ';a supremely gifted writer' (The Washington Post). In The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away, a self-absorbed narrator on his deathbed drifts off to the comforting strains of a cantata as he recalls a blistering childhood of militarism, sacrifice, humiliation, and revengea tale that is questioned by everyone who knew him. In Prize Stock, winner of the Akutagawa Prize, a black American pilot is downed in a Japanese village during World War II, where the local children see him as some rare findexotic and forbidden. In Aghwee The Sky Monster, the floating ghost of a baby inexplicably haunts a young man on the first day of his first job. And in the title story, a devoted father believes he is the only link between his mentally challenged son and reality. ';[A] remarkable book.' The Washington Post ';Oe is definitely one of the Modern Masters.' Seattlepi.com