ARCHIVED ONLINE EVENT - Japan Society Book Club: A Cat, a Man, and Two Women by Junichiro Tanizaki

Date
Monday 8 June 2020
Time
7.00pm

Booking Details
Online Event
Free for Japan Society Members

Book available from  AbeBooks, Book Depository and Amazon
Japanese version available here

Please note this event is now fully booked

Shinako has been ousted from her marriage by her husband Shozo and his younger lover Fukuko. She’s lost everything: her home, status, and respectability. Yet the only thing she longs for is Lily, the elegant tortoiseshell cat she shared with her husband. As Shinako pleads for Lily’s return, Shozo’s reluctance to part with the cat reveals his true affections, and the lengths he’ll go to hold onto the one he loves most.

Junichiro Tanizaki (1886- 1965) was one of the major writers of modern Japanese literature, and perhaps the most popular Japanese novelist after Natsume Sōseki. Some of his works present a shocking world of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions. Others, less sensational, subtly portray the dynamics of family life in the context of the rapid changes in 20th-century Japanese society. Frequently his stories are narrated in the context of a search for cultural identity in which constructions of “the West” and “Japanese tradition” are juxtaposed.

If you have any questions, please call the Japan Society office on 020 3075 1996 or email events@japansociety.org.uk.