A Late Chrysanthemum: Twenty-One Stories from the Japanese (English and Japanese Edition) - Hardcover

Dunlop, Lane

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0865472297 ISBN 13: 9780865472297

Publisher: North Point Pr, 1986

Synopsis

Twenty-one stories by seven prominent Japanese writers describe a visit to the barbershop, the connection between people and nature, an encounter on a train, and an aging beauty

About this title

Reviews

Picked from among the work of seven authors, all famous in Japan, if not well known elsewhere, these stories mostly come from that country's "golden age of the short story" (the Russo-Japanese War, 1905, to World War II). It was a period when Western influence blended with, but did not dominate, a native tradition strongly rooted in the belief that nature gives focus and meaning to human life. Among the authors included are Naoya Shiga, "the god of the short story," whose four tales are written with an eerie lyric intensity that can rise to violence; Nobel laureate Kawabata Yasunari; and Osamu Dazai, one of Japan's best-loved modern writers. The title narrative, by Fumiko Hayashi, describes with compelling subtlety an aging geisha's decision to reject an erstwhile lover whom she finds to be coarse and money-minded. The seventh writer, with work distinct from the others, is Kobo Abe, born in 1924, who depicts a nightmarish urban landscape reminiscent of Kafka and Beckett, with alienation and psychic disintegration as his pervasive themes. Illustrations not seen by PW; notes.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: North Point Pr
• Publication date: 1986
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0865472297
• ISBN 13: 9780865472297
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 178