A luminous story of desire, regret, and the almost sensual nostalgia that binds the living to the dead—from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner and author of Snow Country.
With a restraint that barely conceals the ferocity of his characters' passions, one of Japan's great postwar novelists tells the luminous story of Kikuji and the tea party he attends with Mrs. Ota, the rival of his dead father's mistress. A tale of desire, regret, and sensual nostalgia, every gesture has a meaning, and even the most fleeting touch or casual utterance has the power to illuminate entire lives--sometimes in the same moment that it destroys them.
“A literary habitat like no other . . . quietly devastating fiction. . . . Behind a lyrical and understated surface, chaotic passions pulse.”
—The Independent (London)
“Thousand Cranes has the qualities of the best Japanese writing: a stunning economy, delicacy of feeling, and a painter’s sensitivity to the visible world.”
—The Atlantic
"A novel of exquisite artistry...rich suggestibility...and a story that is human, vivid and moving."--New York Herald Tribune
"Kawabata is a poet of the gentlest shades, of the evanescent, the imperceptible. This is a tragedy in soft focus, but its passions are fierce." - Commonweal
