Somersault

Kenzaburo Oe is internationally recognized as one of the world's finest writers, and his achievements have received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Somersault, the first new novel he published since winning the Nobel, departs radically from the autobiographical fiction he was known for, in a magnificent story of the charisma of leaders, the danger of zealotry, and the mystery of faith. A decade before the story opens, two men referred to as the Patron and Guide of mankind were leaders of an influential religious movement that fell apart when a group of their more radical followers plotted an act of terrorism. Now, after ten years of silence, they are ready to return to religious leadership — but old, new, and unexpected problems threaten them. As planning proceeds for the summer conference that will launch the new church in the eyes of the world, conflicts between various factions threaten to make a mockery of the church's unity — or something far more dangerous. Somersault is an astonishing achievement that again confirms Kenzaburo Oe's place among the world's most respected writers, even as it takes his body of work in fresh and fertile directions.