A Personal Matter
E181498
A Personal Matter is a semi-autobiographical novel by Kenzaburō Ōe that follows a young father’s psychological turmoil and moral struggle after the birth of his brain-damaged son.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| A Personal Matter canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1593860 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: A Personal Matter Context triple: [Kenzaburō Ōe, notableWork, A Personal Matter]
-
A.
Norwegian Wood
Norwegian Wood is a 2010 Japanese film adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s novel, known for its melancholic coming-of-age story and featuring Rinko Kikuchi in a prominent role.
-
B.
The Blue Umbrella
The Blue Umbrella is a Pixar animated short film that follows the journey of a sentient blue umbrella through a rainy cityscape, showcasing photorealistic visuals and a charming, dialogue-free love story.
-
C.
The Dresser
The Dresser is a 1983 British drama film, adapted from Ronald Harwood’s play, about the complex relationship between an aging Shakespearean actor and his devoted dresser during World War II.
-
D.
The Day I Tried to Live
"The Day I Tried to Live" is a 1994 grunge/alternative rock song by Soundgarden, known for its dark, introspective lyrics and dynamic, heavy sound.
-
E.
Paama
Paama is an Oceanic language spoken primarily on Paama Island in central Vanuatu.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: A Personal Matter Target entity description: A Personal Matter is a semi-autobiographical novel by Kenzaburō Ōe that follows a young father’s psychological turmoil and moral struggle after the birth of his brain-damaged son.
-
A.
Norwegian Wood
Norwegian Wood is a 2010 Japanese film adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s novel, known for its melancholic coming-of-age story and featuring Rinko Kikuchi in a prominent role.
-
B.
The Blue Umbrella
The Blue Umbrella is a Pixar animated short film that follows the journey of a sentient blue umbrella through a rainy cityscape, showcasing photorealistic visuals and a charming, dialogue-free love story.
-
C.
The Dresser
The Dresser is a 1983 British drama film, adapted from Ronald Harwood’s play, about the complex relationship between an aging Shakespearean actor and his devoted dresser during World War II.
-
D.
The Day I Tried to Live
"The Day I Tried to Live" is a 1994 grunge/alternative rock song by Soundgarden, known for its dark, introspective lyrics and dynamic, heavy sound.
-
E.
Paama
Paama is an Oceanic language spoken primarily on Paama Island in central Vanuatu.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
novel
ⓘ
semi-autobiographical novel ⓘ |
| adaptationStatus | no widely known major film adaptation ⓘ |
| author | Kenzaburō Ōe ⓘ |
| awardsContext | contributed to Ōe’s later Nobel recognition ⓘ |
| centralConflict | choice between accepting responsibility and pursuing selfish freedom ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | Japan ⓘ |
| criticalReception | highly acclaimed by literary critics ⓘ |
| EnglishPublicationYear | 1968 ⓘ |
| EnglishTranslator | John Nathan ⓘ |
| genre |
literary fiction
ⓘ
psychological fiction ⓘ |
| hasCharacter |
Bird’s brain-damaged son
ⓘ
Bird’s wife ⓘ Himiko ⓘ |
| hasMotif |
alcohol and self-destruction
ⓘ
flight to Africa as fantasy of escape ⓘ maps and geography as symbols of freedom ⓘ |
| hasTheme |
disability
ⓘ
escape and avoidance ⓘ existential crisis ⓘ fatherhood ⓘ moral responsibility ⓘ personal growth ⓘ |
| inspiredBy | Kenzaburō Ōe’s own experience with his disabled son ⓘ |
| languageOfFirstPublication | Japanese ⓘ |
| literaryMovement | modernist literature ⓘ |
| literaryPeriod | postwar Japanese literature ⓘ |
| mainCharacter | Bird ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | third-person ⓘ |
| notableFor | frank depiction of disability and parental ambivalence ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | Japanese ⓘ |
| originalTitle | 個人的な体験 ⓘ |
| originalTitleRomaji | Kojinteki na Taiken ⓘ |
| partOf | Kenzaburō Ōe’s body of work on family and disability ⓘ |
| plotFocus |
moral struggle over accepting or rejecting disabled child
ⓘ
young father’s psychological turmoil after birth of brain-damaged son ⓘ |
| protagonistNickname | Bird ⓘ |
| protagonistOccupation | cram school teacher ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1964 ⓘ |
| publisher | Shinchōsha ⓘ |
| setting | Tokyo ⓘ |
| studiedIn |
courses on Japanese literature
ⓘ
courses on disability studies in literature ⓘ |
| tone |
darkly comic
ⓘ
tragic ⓘ |
| translatedInto | English ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: A Personal Matter Description of subject: A Personal Matter is a semi-autobiographical novel by Kenzaburō Ōe that follows a young father’s psychological turmoil and moral struggle after the birth of his brain-damaged son.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.