Tanizaki Jun’ichirō

Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (born July 24, 1886, Tokyo, Japan—died July 30, 1965, Yugawara) was a major modern Japanese novelist, whose writing is characterized by eroticism and ironic wit. His earliest short stories, of which “Shisei” (1910; “The Tattooer”) is an example, have affinities with Edgar Allan Poe and the French Decadents. After moving from Tokyo to the more conservative Ōsaka area in 1923, however, he seemed to turn toward the exploration of more traditional Japanese ideals...