The Makioka Sisters (Vintage Classics Japanese Series)
  • Published: 1 October 1993
  • ISBN: 9780749397104
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 576
  • RRP: $40.00
Categories:

The Makioka Sisters (Vintage Classics Japanese Series)

Formats & editions
Paperback
3 Dec 2019
Paperback
1 Oct 1993
EBook
1 Jul 2010
Hardback
15 Jun 1993
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'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 surgical precision, Tanizaki lays bare the sinews of pride, and brings a vanished era to vibrant life.
  • Published: 1 October 1993
  • ISBN: 9780749397104
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 576
  • RRP: $40.00
Categories:

About the author

Junichiro Tanizaki

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.

portrait photo of Junichiro Tanizaki

Also by Junichiro Tanizaki

The Key & Diary of a Mad Old Man
The Secret History Of The Lord Of Musashi
Naomi
Some Prefer Nettles
Diary of a Mad Old Man
The Key
The Reed Cutter and Captain Shigemoto's Mother
See all

Praise for The Makioka Sisters (Vintage Classics Japanese Series)

Exquisite craftsmanship

Guardian

An exquisite novel about four sisters living though a turbulent decade, during the Forties and Fifties, I'd put it in the 10 greatest books of the 20th century

David Mitchell, Daily Express

A complex, detailed and agreeably gossipy book...The author's obvious nostalgia for this vanished world does not prevent him from looking objectively at its darker side and this, together with his artful blend of the exotic and the mundane, creates an absorbing and richly textured story

Sunday Times

A subtle, moving novel

The Times

A classic novel of a whole country about to turn on the terrible hinge of the war into modernity; its tone is elegiac and bleak

Observer

The work of Tanizaki offers to us in the West one of the most valuable keys to understanding the Japanese crisis of identity

Independent

An extraordinary book which can truly be said to break new ground

New Yorker

Exquisite craftsmanship

Guardian

An exquisite novel about four sisters living though a turbulent decade, during the Forties and Fifties, I'd put it in the 10 greatest books of the 20th century

David Mitchell, Daily Express

A subtle, moving novel

The Times

A classic novel of a whole country about to turn on the terrible hinge of the war into modernity; its tone is elegiac and bleak

Observer

The work of Tanizaki offers to us in the West one of the most valuable keys to understanding the Japanese crisis of identity

Independent

A complex, detailed and agreeably gossipy book...The author's obvious nostalgia for this vanished world does not prevent him from looking objectively at its darker side and this, together with his artful blend of the exotic and the mundane, creates an absorbing and richly textured story

Sunday Times

An extraordinary book which can truly be said to break new ground

New Yorker