In Praise of Shadows and Other Essays

Praise for Michael Cronin’s translation of Tanizaki’s The Maids:

“The Maids is Tanizaki’s final novel. It is also–as Michael P. Cronin’s translation, the first into English, shows–one of his best.” –Chandrahas Choudhury, “Japan’s Greatest Novelist,” Wall Street Journal

“The Maids illuminates from within the huge social changes that occurred during that time….These relationships are shown with heartfelt precision, and the narration is enriched with many allusions, not only to the time of the setting but to earlier, classical Japanese literature. The translator handles all this masterfully, and his afterword should not be missed.” –American Literary Translators Association, Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize Short List announcement“A companion piece to The Makioka Sisters, as seen from the servants’ entrance…languorous and spacious…a litany of the lovable quirks, rustic accents, and amours of a series of young women.” –Pico Iyer, New York Review of Books“This short novel teems with life…and it has a flavour all of its own, a joyful, comic, improvisational quality rupturing the elegiac tone announced in its opening pages.” –Edmund Gordon, Times Literary Supplement

Junichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965)

Widely considered one of Japan’s finest modern authors, Junichiro Tanizaki was born in the heart of Tokyo at a time when the city was just beginning to modernize. He studied Japanese literature at Tokyo Imperial University and entered the literary scene in 1910 with the much-lauded short story “The Tattoo.” After the earthquake of 1923, he moved to the Kyoto-Osaka region, the setting for his later masterpiece, The Makioka Sisters. Many of his most important novels, stories, essays, and translations were written after this move. He received the Imperial Prize for Literature in 1949, and Japan’s prestigious Tanizaki Prize is given in his name.

Michael P. Cronin

Michael P. Cronin is a translator, scholar of Japanese literature and cinema, and Associate Professor of Japanese Studies at The College of William & Mary. He is the translator of Junichiro Tanizaki’s final novel, The Maids, and the author of Osaka Modern.

John Einarsen

John Einarsen’s photography books include Kyoto: The Forest Within the Gate and Small Buildings of Kyoto vol. 1 & II. He is the founding editor and publisher of Kyoto Journal and has lived in Kyoto for over 40 years.