ISBN: 9780679761648
Author: Junichiro Tanizaki

Translated from Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker

Publisher Information: Vintage International

Publication Date: 1995/09/26

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Title: 細雪上・中・下セッ (3 volumes)

Japanese Version ISBN: 9784044001308

Author: 谷崎潤一郎 | Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

Japanese Publisher Information: 角川文庫 | Kadokawa

Japanese Publication Date: 2016/07/23

Topical Subject Header: Fiction

The Makioka Sisters

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Junichirō Tanizaki’s magisterial evocation of a proud Osaka family in decline during the years immediately before World War II is arguably the greatest Japanese novel of the twentieth century and a classic of international literature.

Tsuruko, the eldest sister of the once-wealthy Makioka family, clings obstinately to the prestige of her family name even as her husband prepares to move their household to Tokyo, where that name means nothing. Sachiko compromises valiantly to secure the future of her younger sisters. The shy, unmarried Yukiko is a hostage to her family’s exacting standards, while the spirited Taeko rebels by flinging herself into scandalous romantic alliances and dreaming of studying fashion design in France. Filled with vignettes of a vanishing way of life, The Makioka Sisters is a poignant yet unsparing portrait of a family—and an entire society—sliding into the abyss of modernity. It possesses in abundance the keen social insight and unabashed sensuality that distinguish Tanizaki as a master novelist.
Junichiro Tanizaki was born in Tokyo in 1886 and lived in the city until the earthquake of 1923, when he moved to the Kyoto-Osaka region, the scene of one of his most well-known novels, The Makioka Sisters (1943-48). The author of over twenty books, including Naomi (1924), Some Prefer Nettles (1928), Arrowroot (1931), and A Portrait of Shunkin (1933), Tanizaki also published translations of the Japanese classic, The Tale of Genji in 1941, 1954, and 1965. Several of his novels, including Quicksand (1930), The Key (1956), and Diary of a Mad Old Man (1961) were made into movies. He was awarded Japan’s Imperial Prize in Literature in 1949, and in 1965 he became the first Japanese writer to be elected as an honorary member of the American Academy and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Tanizaki died in 1965.
旧家・蒔岡家の四人姉妹、鶴子・幸子・雪子・妙子。上流社会に暮らす一家の日々が描かれる。上巻では、奔放な四女・妙子の新聞沙汰、美しいが無口で未婚の三女・雪子の縁談を巡って物語が展開してゆく――。奔放な四女・妙子は神戸の大洪水に遭うも一命をとりとめた。しかしその後さらなる悲劇が妙子を襲う。三女・雪子は、縁談を期待して東京の本家に移り住むことになるが、都会の空気になじめず――。日中戦争開戦の向きがいよいよ本格的になる中、三女・雪子の縁談に光が見える。一方、家から絶縁を言い渡された妙子は――。著者・谷崎が第二次大戦下、自費出版してまで世に残したかった、大作の完結編。