The End of Summer (First Edition

New York: Kodansha International, 1989. First edition. First printing. Hardcover. Full blue cloth with silver spine lettering and light-blue endpapers. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Publisher's original price intact on front flap ($17.95). Comes with archival-quality mylar dust jacket protector. A tight, clean copy. Octavo, 151 pages. Translated from the Japanese by Janine Beichman in collaboration with Alan Brender. Five stories. "The End of Summer" portrays a married woman's affair and its emotional aftermath, a frank exploration of love and conscience that challenged postwar Japanese social conventions. Originally published in Japan as "Natsu no Owari," it won the Women's Literary Award in 1963 and appears here as the first English translation of any of Setouchi's novels. This volume also includes four additional stories: "The Overflowing," "Lingering Affection," "Spring Chill," and "The Pheasant" Harumi Setouchi (1922-2021) was one of Japan's most distinguished novelists and later a Buddhist nun, celebrated for her bold depictions of women's inner lives. Her later novel "Beauty in Disarray" (translated by Sanford Goldstein and Kazuji Ninomiya, Tuttle, 1993) is a historical portrait of anarchist writer Ito Noe.