I think, we can only write very personal matters through our experience. When I named my first novel about my son "A Personal Matter," I believe I knew the most important thing: there is not any personal matter; we must find the link between ourselves, our "personal matter," and society.

The way Japan had tried to build up a modern state modelled on the West was cataclysmic.

However, please allow me to say that the fundamental style of my writing has been to start from my personal matters and then to link it up with society, the state and the world.

After I got married, the first child born to us was mentally handicapped.

I don't think young people need to see the face of the deceased.

The ambiguous orientation of Japan drove the country into the position of an invader in Asia.

From another point of view, a new situation now seems to be arising in which Japan's prosperity is going to be incorporated into the expanding potential power of both production and consumption in Asia at large.