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Thousand Cranes
  • Published: 7 March 2011
  • ISBN: 9780141192604
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 112
  • RRP: $29.99
Categories:

Thousand Cranes

  • Yasunari Kawabata
Formats & editions
Paperback
15 July 2025
EBook
28 Mar 2011
Paperback
7 Mar 2011
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Thousand Cranes exemplifies Kawabata's mastery of the nuances of human psychology

Kikuji has been invited to a tea ceremony by a mistress of his dead father. He is shocked to find there the mistress's rival and successor, Mrs. Ota, and that the ceremony has been awkwardly arranged for him to meet his potential future bride. But he is most shocked to be drawn into a relationship with Mrs. Ota - a relationship that will bring only suffering and destruction to all of them. Thousand Cranes reflects the tea ceremony's poetic precision with understated, lyrical style and beautiful prose.
  • Published: 7 March 2011
  • ISBN: 9780141192604
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 112
  • RRP: $29.99
Categories:

Praise for Thousand Cranes

Kawabata is a poet of the gentlest shades, of the evanescent, the imperceptible. This is a tragedy in soft focus, but its passions are fierce

Commonweal

A novel of exquisite artistry . . . rich suggestibility . . . and a story that is human, vivid and moving

New York Herald Tribune

Thousand Cranes has the qualities of the best Japanese writing: a stunning economy, delicacy of feeling, and a painter's sensitivity to the visible world

The Atlantic

A literary habitat like no other . . . quietly devastating fiction. . . . Behind a lyrical and understated surface, chaotic passions pulse

The Independent (London)