A Cat, A Man, and Two Women - Softcover

Tanizaki, Junichiro; Mccarthy, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 081122449X ISBN 13: 9780811224499

Publisher: New Directions, 2015

Synopsis

The three pieces in this collection--the novella "A Cat, A Man, and Two Women" and two shorter pieces "The Little Kingdom" and "Professor Rado"--are lighthearted and entertaining variations on one of Tanizaki's favorite preoccupations: dominance and submission in relationships, complicated even further here by customs, public opinion, and comic grotesqueries. In the title piece, the bumbling Shozo is caught in the middle of an ongoing struggle between his ex-wife and her younger successor. Shozo would prefer to stay out of it and be peacefully left alone with his elegant tortoiseshell cat Lily, but he keeps getting dragged back into the battles and arguments. The result is an oddball love triangle centered around Lily, the only true object of Shozo's affections--"one of the finest pieces of literature concerning cats ever written" (Choice).

About this title

Review:

'A tour de force - catnip.' --New York Times

'Tanizaki is a very brilliant novelist.' --Haruki Murakami

'The outstanding Japanese novelist of the century.' --Edmund White, New York Times Book Review

About the Author:

Author of The Makioka Sisters, In Praise of Shadows, and A Cat, a Man, and Two Women, Junichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965) is arguably the greatest Japanese writer of the twentieth century.

Paul McCarthy, Professor of Comparative Culture at Surugadai University in Japan, has translated work by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, Takeshi Umehara, Zenno Ishigami, and Atsushi Nakajima.

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 081122449X
• ISBN 13: 9780811224499
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 180