Set against the modernization of Japan, this memoir offers a moving look at famed novelist Tanizaki' Jun'ichirō’s early years
Description
In Childhood Years, originally published serially in a literary magazine between 1955 and 1956, Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (1886–1965) takes a meandering look back on his early life in Tokyo. He reflects on his upbringing, family, and the capital city with a conversational—and not necessarily honest—eye, offering insights into his later life and his writing.
Paul McCarthy is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Culture at Surugadai University, Saitama, Japan. He has translated Tanizaki's “The Little Kingdom,” “Professor Radō,” and A Cat, a Man, and Two Women, which won the Japan-America Friendship Commission Prize. He co-translated with Anthony H. Chambers the story collections Red Roofs and Other Stories and The Gourmet Club, a Sextet, also by Tanizaki. He has translated short story collections by Nakajima Atsushi (The Moon over the Mountain, with Nobuko Ochner) and Kanai Mieko (The Word Book), 101 Modern Japanese Poems, and two volumes of Shiba Ryōtarō‘s Clouds above the Hill.