川端 康成

The successful writer Oki has reached middle age and is filled with regrets. He returns to Kyoto to Otoko, a young woman with whom he had a terrible affair many years before, and discovers that she is now a painter, living with a younger woman as her lover. Otoko has continues to love Oki and has never forgotten him, …

The fusion of reality and fantasy in the minds of the old and the lonely is the central theme of these Japanese stories.

『千羽鶴』は、川端康成の長編小説。川端の戦後の代表作の一つで、芸術院賞を受賞した作品である。亡き不倫相手の成長した息子と会い、愛した人の面影を宿すその青年に惹かれた夫人の愛と死を軸に、美しく妖艶な夫人を志野茶碗の精のように回想する青年が、夫人の娘とも契る物語。匂うような官能的な夫人の肉感に象徴される形見の志野茶碗の名器の感触と幻想から生まれる超現実な美的世界と、俗悪に堕した茶の湯の世界の生々しい人間関係が重なり合って描かれている。 …

Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata’s Snow Country is widely considered to be the writer’s masterpiece: a powerful tale of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of western Japan. At an isolated mountain hot spring, with snow blanketing every surface, Shimamura, a wealthy dilettante meets Komako, a lowly geisha. …