The Reed Cutter and Captain Shigemoto's Mother

One of the great novelists of the twentieth century, Junichiro Tanizaki wrote about love--and sex--with a breathtaking suppleness of style and a vast depth of literary allusion. In these two novellas, brilliantly translated by Anthony H. Chambers and appearing in paperback for the first time, Tanizaki probes the translucent screen that separates idealized yearning from humiliating obsession in a society of impenetrable decorum.

Junichiro Tanizaki was born in Tokyo in 1886 and lived there until the earthquake of 1923, when he moved to the Kyoto-Osaka region, the scene of his novel <b>The Makioka Sisters</b> (1943-48). Among his works are <b>Naomi</b> (1924), <b>Some Prefer Nettles</b> (1928), <b>Quicksand</b> (1930), <b>Arrowroot</b> (1931), <b>A Portrait of Shunkin</b> (1933), <b>The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi</b> (1935), modern versions of <b>The Tale of Genji</b> (1941, 1954, and 1965), <b>Captain Shigemoto's Mothe</b><i>r </i>(1949), <b>The Key</b> (1956), and <b>Diary of a Mad Old Man</b> (1961). By 1930 he had gained such renown that an edition of his complete works was published, and he was awarded Japan's Imperial Prize in Literature in 1949. Tanizaki died in 19