The Kenzaburō Ōe Prize (大江健三郎賞) is a Japanese literary award sponsored by Kodansha (講談社) and established in 2006 to commemorate both the 100th anniversary of Kodansha's establishment and 50th anniversary of the writing life of Kenzaburō Ōe (大江健三郎). The award is for Japanese literary novels published in the last year. The winning work is selected solely by Ōe. The winner receives no cash award, but the novel is translated into other languages such as English, French and German for publication. Kenzaburō Ōe has an open conversation with the winner.
Since one of the aims of this award is the promotion of Japanese novels of the younger generation which are the representations of words of the Japanese intellectuals, this prize is awarded to the best novel which contains the best 'literary words' with possibilities and results judged by Ōe.