The Makioka Sisters

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki · 1886–1965 · Japan

Originally Sasameyuki (Japanese) · translated by Edward Seidensticker

Why it matters

Four Osaka sisters, a fading merchant house, and the seasonal rituals of a world about to vanish into war. Serialized under wartime censorship and finished after it: the Japanese novel at its most sumptuous and elegiac.

At a glance

Long and detail-dense but told in a plain, unhurried, linear style.