Oe.
Ever heard of him?In awarding Kenzaburo Oe the 1994 Nobel Prize for literature, the Swedish Academy said the Japanese writer "has been influenced strongly by the culture of the West."
But citadels of Western culture have all but ignored the 59-year-old author, and his books occupy few American shelves.
"I haven't read any books by him - but I know of his name," said Noriyuki Shida, a sales manager at New York's Kinokuniya, the biggest Japanese-language bookstore in the world outside Japan.
The fact is, the Nobel assures a winner worldwide prestige - but not popularity.
"From the standpoint of mass readership, the Nobel does not have a significant impact," said Tom Hallock, vice president of sales and marketing at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, which publishes or distributes the works of 19 Nobel laureates.
One thing is certain: More people will read Oe (pronounced OH-eh) after the Nobel.
At Kinokuniya, sales of Oe's books skyrocketed after the prize was announced Oct. 13, Shida said.
Translation: Readers cleared Oe books in English from the huge store - all six of them - and all but two of 40 volumes in Japanese. Kinokuniya has ordered about 500 more books by Oe from Japan, and 100 copies each of the seven titles published in the United States.
Manhattan-based Grove Press is printing 20,000 more copies of Oe's "A Personal Matter," a novel about a father with a handicapped child. Kodansha International, which publishes the English edition of Oe's "The Silent Cry," is set for a fresh run of 10,000 copies.
The Barnes & Noble bookstore chain carries several Oe titles, and Waldenbooks was deciding which of his works to order.
So he's not exactly Danielle Steele. But if more readers were to get excited about Oe, what would they find?
The author offers dark musings on a man who fathers a brain-damaged son - as Oe did - and buries his torment by taking a mistress; on tortuous relationships in a muddled modern world; and on the search for personal identity in postwar Japan.
Definitely not the stuff of page turners. But the Nobel is definitely not a popularity contest.