Evening Clouds: A Novel (Rock Spring Collection of Japanese Literature)

A masterpiece of quiet lyricism set against a backdrop of change and renewal in suburban Tokyo.

The most celebrated work by one of Japan's master literary stylists, Evening Clouds is a book filled with delicate images of ordinary life, richly and precisely observed. A family moves into a new home on a windswept hilltop in western Tokyo. Around them are forests and farms. But the developers are coming, and the children are growing up. There are meals, quandaries, conversations...Life appears comfortable and serene, yet Shōno's portrayal has a strange and evocative undercurrent, as the most minute details slowly resonate out through a universe that is changing and unforgiving. Evening Clouds combines the crafted naturalism of haiku with the Ozu-like clarity of film to produce a story that is wistful and real. Read Shōno slowly, a luxuriate in his vision.

Junzo Shono was born in 1921 and lives in Kawasaki, Japan. Has won numerous literary awards, including the Yomiuri Prize for Evening Clouds.

Wayne P. Lammers is a translator of Japanese into English. He was translation editor for Mangajin and is considered one of the finest translators of Japanese literature today.