The marriage of Kaname and Misako is disintegrating: whilst seeking passion and fulfilment in the arms of others, they contemplate the humiliation of divorce. Misako's father believes their relationship has been damaged by the influence of a new and alien culture, and so attempts to heal the breach by educating his son-in-law in the time-honoured Japanese traditions of aesthetic and sensual pleasure. The result is an absorbing, chilling conflict between ancient and modern, young and old.

Junichiro Tanizaki was born in 1886 in Tokyo, where his family owned printing establishment. He studied Japanese literature at Tokyo Imperial University, and 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 gentler and more cultivated Kyoto-Osaka region, the scene ofThe Makioka Sisters. There he became absorbed in the Japanese past and all his most important works were written from this point, among themSome Prefer Nettles(1929),Arrowroot(1931),The Secret History of the Lord Musashi(1935), several modern versions ofThe Tale of Genji(1941, 1954 and 1965),The Makioka Sisters(1943-48),Captain Shigemoto's Mother(1949),The Key(1956) andDiary of a Mad Old Man(1961). By 1930 he had gained such renown that an edition of his complete works was published and he was awarded an Imperial Award for Cultural Merit in 1949. In 1964 he was elected an honorary Member of the American Academy and the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the first Japanese citizen ever to recieve this honour. Tanizaki died in 1965.

A powerful, autobiographical work set in 1920s Tokyo and Osaka>