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A Quiet Life is an uncanny blend of the real with the imagined, of memoir with fiction. A Quiet Life is narrated by Ma-chan, a twenty-year-old woman. Her father is a famous and fascinating novelist; her older brother, though severely brain damaged, possesses an almost magical gift for musical composition; and her mother's life is devoted to the care of them both. Ma-chan and her younger brother find themselves emotionally on the outside of this oddly constructed nuclear family. But when her father accepts a visiting professorship from an American university, Ma-chan finds herself suddenly the head of the household and at the center of family relationships that she must begin to redefine.
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A Quiet Life, Kenzaburō Ōe
- Language
- Released
- 1997
- Binding
- (Paperback)
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- Title
- A Quiet Life
- Language
- English
- Authors
- Kenzaburō Ōe
- Publisher
- Grove Press
- Released
- 1997
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 256
- ISBN10
- 0802135463
- ISBN13
- 9780802135469
- Series
- Tags
- Fiction, Japan, Japanese Literature, Siblings, Nobel prize, Responsibility, Tokyo, Mental Retardation
- Original title
- Shizuka-na-seikatsu
- Rating
- 3.65 out of 5
- Description
- A Quiet Life is an uncanny blend of the real with the imagined, of memoir with fiction. A Quiet Life is narrated by Ma-chan, a twenty-year-old woman. Her father is a famous and fascinating novelist; her older brother, though severely brain damaged, possesses an almost magical gift for musical composition; and her mother's life is devoted to the care of them both. Ma-chan and her younger brother find themselves emotionally on the outside of this oddly constructed nuclear family. But when her father accepts a visiting professorship from an American university, Ma-chan finds herself suddenly the head of the household and at the center of family relationships that she must begin to redefine.