Junichiro Tanizaki

The Makioka Sisters is part of the Vintage Japanese Classics series, which follows the success of Vintage Russian Classics and European Classics. These editions feature the best Japanese writers on the Vintage list. 'An exquisite novel about four sisters living through a turbulent decade...I'd put it in the 10 greatest books of the 20th century' — David Mitchell 'A near-perfect...

Quicksand is a seductive psychological thriller about obsession, jealousy, and deceit, and is considered a Japanese classic. Now featuring an introduction by Kristen Roupenian, author of 'Cat Person'. Sonoko Kakiuchi is a cultured Osaka lady trapped in an uninspiring marriage. Seeking something more, she enrols in an art class in town where she encounters the extraordinary Mitsuko, a woman as...

At once hilarious and sad, Tanizaki's last novel—written during his final illness—echoes his own life. While recovering from a stroke, seventy-seven-year-old Utsugi turns to his diary to wryly record his struggle with his ageing body and his growing desire for his beautiful daughter-in-law Satsuko, a chic, Westernised dancer with a shady past. Shining with a self-effacing humour, Tanizaki's last novel...

Some Prefer Nettles is set in Tokyo in the 1920s, capturing a marriage on the brink of disintegration in Tanizaki's gripping novel from 1929. Kaname's marriage is falling apart. In the shifting societal landscape of 1920s Tokyo, he and his wife, Misako, find themselves in a caricature of a progressive Western marriage. Seeking solace, Kaname indulges in an affair, while...

A seductive portrait of marriage and sexual passion. A husband and wife each write in their diary, never knowing if it is being read by the other. Ikuko and her husband are deeply in love but have grown physically apart, each unsure of the other's desires. When Ikuko finds the key to her husband's diary, she ignores it, but she...

Shinako has been ousted from her marriage by her husband Shozo and his younger lover Fukuko. She's lost her home, status, and respectability, but the only thing she longs for is Lily, the elegant tortoiseshell cat she shared with her husband. As Shinako pleads for Lily's return, Shozo's reluctance to part with the cat reveals his true affections, and the...

These two novellas by the inimitable Tanizaki were among his favourites. The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi recounts the dark sexual obsessions of a sixteenth-century warlord, accidentally initiated in his youth into the morbid rites attendant upon battle. Based on invented documents that overlap with historical reality, the story unfolds a masterly balance of irony and melodrama, elegance...

The outstanding Japanese novelist of the century... The Makioka Sisters is his greatest book — Edmund White, New York Times Book Review Tanizaki's masterpiece is the story of four sisters, and the declining fortunes of a traditional Japanese family. It is a loving and nostalgic recreation of the sumptuous, intricate upper-class life of Osaka immediately before World War Two. With...

In Praise of Shadows and Other Essays belongs to that special order of slim, enormously powerful books that enchant the lay reader with an esoteric subject, leaving a lifelong imprint on the imagination. - Maria Popova Illustrated with artful images by renowned Kyoto-based photographer John Einarsen, this book is a "must-have" for all fans of Japanese literature and anyone interested...

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. Longing and Other Stories presents three powerful stories of family life from the first...