Seven Japanese Tales

Seven Japanese Tales gathers fiction by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, a figure many count among the most prominent of modern Japanese literature. It includes A Portrait of Shunkin, a novella set in 19th-century Osaka and published in 1933. It tells of Shunkin, a blind woman, and Sasuke, her obsessively devoted servant. Rie Qudan recommends it for its particularly Japanese sensibility and its exploration of the gaps between the seen and the unseen.