A powerful, autobiographical work set in 1920s Tokyo and Osaka
Junichiro Tanizaki was one of Japan's greatest twentienth century
novelists. Born in 1886 in Tokyo, his first published work - a
one-act play - appeared in 1910 in a literary magazine he helped to
found. Tanizaki lived in the cosmopolitan Tokyo area until the
earthquake of 1923, when he moved to the Kyoto-Osaka region and
became absorbed in Japan's past.
All his most important works were written after 1923, among them
Some Prefer Nettles (1929), The Secret History of the Lord of
Musashi (1935), several modern versions of The Tale of Genji (1941,
1954 and 1965), The Makioka Sisters, The Key (1956) and Diary of a
Mad Old Man (1961). He was awarded an Imperial Award for Cultural
Merit in 1949 and in 1965 he was elected an honorary member of the
American Academy and the National Institute of Arts and Letters,
the first Japanese writer to receive this honour. Tanizaki died
later that same year.
A chilling climax. Tanizaki is a master of ambiguity in his own
language and the subtle flavour of the work is skilfully preserved
in this translation
*The Times*
It is important that the British public should become acquainted
with this great twentieth-century Japanese fiction writer
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