Noble observer

In a torrid Tokyo summer some time in the 1960s, a weedy malcontent named Bird wanders the streets. Fatherhood is about to eclipse his dream of travelling to Africa; but the birth itself launches Bird on a journey wilder than any safari, Kenzaburo 0ë’s, A Personal Matter (Picador, £5.99, ISBN 0 330 34435 8) – a reissue of the 1969 edition – is the story of a man who in fleeing from his brain-damaged child damages himself almost irretrievably. Winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature, Oë is a profound humanist with a raw and unsettling view of our times.