The Makioka Sisters
Four daughters of an old merchant family unknowingly face the end of a gentler way of life in Osaka, Japan in 1938.
The Makioka Sisters
The novel primarily focuses on the intricacies of the sisters' relationships, their struggles with tradition, modernity, and familial obligations, and their attempts to find suitable husbands for Yukiko, the third sister, who remains unmarried. Yukiko's marriage prospects become a central concern for the family, and much of the plot revolves around their efforts to arrange a suitable match for her despite the challenges posed by societal changes and the family's declining fortunes. Through the lens of the Makioka sisters' lives, Tanizaki explores themes such as tradition versus modernity, family dynamics, gender roles, and the impact of historical events on individual lives. The novel is celebrated for its rich portrayal of Japanese culture and society during the pre-war era, as well as its detailed character development and nuanced depiction of interpersonal relationships.
Naomi
A hilarious story of one man’s obsession and a brilliant reckoning of a nation’s cultural confusion—from a master Japanese novelist. When twenty-eight-year-old Joji first lays eyes upon the teenage waitress Naomi, he is instantly smitten by her exotic, almost Western appearance. Determined to transform her into the perfect wife and to whisk her away from the seamy underbelly of post-World War I Tokyo, Joji adopts and ultimately marries Naomi, paying for English and music lessons that promise to mold her into his ideal companion. But as she grows older, Joji discovers that Naomi is far from the naïve girl of his fantasies. And, in Tanizaki’s masterpiece of lurid obsession, passion quickly descends into comically helpless masochism.
Longing and Other Stories
Jun’ichirō Tanizaki is one of the most eminent Japanese writers of the twentieth century, renowned for his investigations of family dynamics, eroticism, and cultural identity. Most acclaimed for his postwar novels such as The Makioka Sisters and The Key, Tanizaki made his literary debut in 1910. This book presents three powerful stories of family life from the first decade of Tanizaki’s career that foreshadow the themes the great writer would go on to explore. “Longing” recounts the fantastic journey of a precocious young boy through an eerie nighttime landscape. Replete with striking natural images and uncanny human encounters, it ends with a striking revelation. “Sorrows of a Heretic” follows a university student and aspiring novelist who lives in degrading poverty in a Tokyo tenement. Ambitious and tormented, the young man rebels against his family against a backdrop of sickness and death. “The Story of an Unhappy Mother” describes a vivacious but self-centered woman’s drastic transformation after a freak accident involving her son and daughter-in-law. Written in different genres, the three stories are united by a focus on mothers and sons and a concern for Japan’s traditional culture in the face of Westernization. The longtime Tanizaki translators Anthony H. Chambers and Paul McCarthy masterfully bring these important works to an Anglophone audience.
Seven Japanese Tales
Junichiro Tanizaki’s Seven Japanese Tales collects stories that explore the boundary at which love becomes self-annihilation, where the contemplation of beauty gives way to fetishism, and where tradition becomes an instrument of voluptuous cruelty. A beautiful blind musician exacts the ultimate sacrifice from the man who is both her disciple and her lover. A tattooist turns the body of an exquisite young girl into a reflection of her predatory inner nature. A young man is erotically imprisoned by memories of his absent mother. Shocking in its content and lyrical in its beauty, these stories represent some of the finest work of one of Japan’s greatest modern writers.
