Death by Water

In his latest novel, Death by Water, Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe turns to his literary double and recurring protagonist, the renowned novelist Kogito Choko. Choko is returning to his rural hometown to complete "the drowning novel," the fictionalization of his father's death, whom he failed to rescue from drowning after World War II. The impetus to return comes in the form of a red leather trunk, the contents of which have now been made available to him 10 years after his mother's death. When the trunk fails to contain the information he believes necessary to complete the novel, he abandons the project, experiences a bout of vertigo and lashes out at his disabled son.