The silent cry (Mannen Gannen no Futtobōru, 1967), novel by the Japanese writer Kenzaburō Ōe. He narrates the story of the Nedokoro brothers, Mitsusaburo "Mitsu" and Takashi "Taka", who travel back to their homeland on Shikoku Island, where the latter will try to emulate Mannen's first-year revolution (1861) to the villagers to stand up against the "Emperor of Supermarkets", Korean businessman of great power and influence in the region, under the pretext of "training a football team." On the other hand, for Mitsu represents an introspective trip, in which it will have to evaluate its current situation and its future prospects, in a marriage that has stagnated and begun to rot as a result of the birth of a disabled child and the alcoholism of the woman of Mitsu.
Novel that reveals some autobiographical aspects of the author, The silent cry represents a descent into hell - style that has led to Ōe to be equated with Dante and Dostoevsky -, where both brothers must confront their true motivations, which always come from a past of which is constantly fleeing but also creeping inexorably, and facing them and living, or escaping and dying.
Miguel Wandenbergh's masterful Japanese translation, finalist to the Noma Prize for the best translation of Japanese literature into another language.
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