Born: Tokyo, Japan, 24 July 1886. Education: Educated at Tokyo Imperial University, 1908-10. Family: Married 1) Chiyoko Ishikawa in 1915 (divorced 1930); 2) Furukawa Tomiko in 1931 (divorced); 3) Nezu Matsuko in 1935. Career: Lived in Yokohama and Tokyo; moved to Kausai, near Osaka, after Tokyo earthquake in 1923. Travelled in China, 1918. Awards: Mainichi prize, 1947; Asahi culture prize, 1949; Imperial cultural medal, 1949. Member: Japan Academy of Arts, 1957; honorary member, American Academy, 1964. Died: 30 July 1965.
Publications
Collections
Zenshu [Collected Works]. 28 vols., 1966-70.
The Reed Cutter and Captain Shigemoto’s Mother: Two Novellas, translated by Anthony H. Chambers. 1994.
Fiction
Shisei (includes plays). 1911; as The Tattooer, translated by Howard Hibbett, in Seven Japanese Tales, 1963.
Akuma [Demon]. 1913.
Osai to Minosuke [Osai and Minosuke]. 1915.
Otsuya-goroshi. 1915; as A Spring-Time Case, translated by Zenchi Iwado, 1927.
Ningyo no nageki [Mermaid's Grief]. 1917.
Kin to gin [Gold and Silver]. 1918. Kami to hito no aida [Between God and Man]. 1924.
Chijin no ai [A Fool's Love]. 1925; as Naomi, translated by Anthony H. Chambers, 1985.
Kojin [Shark-Man]. 1926.
Tade kuu mushi. 1928; as Some Prefer Nettles, translated by Edward G. Seidensticker, 1955.
Manji [Buddhist Swastika]. 1931; as Quicksand, translated by Howard Hibbett, 1994.
Momoku monogatari [A Blind Man's Tale]. 1932.
Ashikari. 1933; as Ashikari, translated by Roy Humpherson and Hajime Okita, with The Story of Shunkin, 1936; as The Reed Cutter, translated by Anthony H. Chambers, with Captain Shigemoto’s Mother, 1994.
Shunkin sho. 1933; as The Story of Shunkin, translated by Roy Humpherson and Hajime Okita, with Ashikari, 1936; as A Portrait of Shunkin, translated by Howard Hibbett, in Seven Japanese Tales, 1963.
Bushuko hiwa. 1935; as The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi,translated by Anthony H. Chambers, with Arrowroot, 1982.
Yoshino kuzu. 1937; as Arrowroot, translated by Anthony H. Chambers, with The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi, 1982.
Neko to shozo tofutari no onna. 1937; as Cat, a Man and Two Women,translated by Paul McCarthy, 1990.
Sasameyuki. 1948; as The Makioka Sisters, translated by Edward G.Seidensticker, 1957.
Rangiku monogatari [Story of Tangled Chrysanthemums]. 1949.
Shosho Shigemoto no haha. 1950; as Captain Shigemoto’s Mother, translated by Anthony H. Chambers, with The Reed Cutter, 1994.
HyofU. 1950.
Kagi. 1956; as The Key, translated by Howard Hibbett, 1960.
Yume no ukihashi [Floating Bridge of Dreams]. 1960.
FUten rojin nikki. 1962; as Diary of a Mad Old Man, translated by Howard Hibbett, in Seven Japanese Tales, 1963.
Seven Japanese Tales, translated by Howard Hibbett. 1963.
Kokumin no bungaku. 1964.
Hagi no hana [Bush Clover Flower]. 1973.
Shisei, Shonen (stories). 1974.
Plays
Hosshoji monogatari [Story of Hosso Temple] (produced 1915). Aisureba koso [If Indeed One Loves]. 1921.
Okuni to Gohei [Okuni and Gohei] (produced 1922). Mandorin wo hiko otoko [The Man with the Mandolin]. 1925.
Byakko-no-yu, as The White Fox, translated by Haruo Endo and Eric S. Bell, in Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan, edited by Bell and E. Ukai. 1930.
Shinzei [Lord Shinzei]. 1949.
Other
ZenshU [Collected Works]. 12 vols., 1930; and later editions. In’ei raisan (essay). 1933; as In Praise of Shadows, translated by Thomas J. Harper and Edward G. Seidensticker, 1977.
Setsuyo zuihitsu (essays). 1935.
Bunsho tokuhon [On Language Style]. 1936.
Kyo no yume: Osaka no yume (addresses, essays, and lectures). 1950.
Selected Works (in Japanese). 1953.
Yosho-jidai. 1957; as Childhood Years: A Memoir, translated by Paul McCarthy, 1988.
Tosei shika modoki. 1961.
Setsugoan yawa [Reminiscences]. 1968.
Editor, Kokumin no bungaku (Japanese literature collections). 18 vols., 1963-65.
Translator (into modern Japanese), Genji monogatari, by Murasaki Shikibu. 26 vols., 1939-41.
Critical Studies:
The Search for Authenticity in Modern Japanese Literature by Hisaaki Yamanouchi, 1978; The Moon in the Water: Understanding Tanizaki, Kawabata, and Mishima by Gwenn Boardman Petersen, 1979; Three Modern Novelists: Soseki, Tanizaki, Kawabata by Van C. Gessel, 1993; The Secret Window: Ideal Worlds in Tanizaki’s Fiction by Anthony H. Chambers, 1994; A Tanizaki Feast: An International Symposium in Venice, edited by Adriana Boscaro and Anthony H. Chambers, 1998; Tanizaki in Western Languages: A Tanizaki Jun’ichiro is better regarded as a narrative artist or storyteller than as a novelist—narrative artistry is a broader, more basic, even primitive skill. He was a born narrator, remarkable for his spontaneity and versatility, and many of his writings do not conform to the general concept of or rules for the ”modern novel.” He could be both realistic and fabulous at the same time, so factually detailed in his description of the daily lives of his characters, and yet so unconventional, so fantastic in his plots and themes.
Tanizaki made a brilliant literary debut in 1910 with Shisei (The Tattooer), in which a beautiful but modest girl is turned into a different personality by being tattooed. Young Tanizaki was intensely interested in fin de siecle Western aestheticism, but this story revealed his own style. Mishima Yukio was an ardent admirer of Tanizaki, and they obviously had much in common. They were committed aesthetes, and pursued and developed an ideal of a beauty highly coloured with sensuality. Each could be called both modern and classical, being susceptible to Western literature and yet well versed in traditional Japanese literature. Both were, at least when young, flamboyant personalities, notorious ”bad boys” of the rather closed literary world of Japan, and their behaviour and lifestyles often shocked conservative readers. However, Tanizaki turned out to be more consistent as an aesthete, keeping himself aloof from politics throughout his long literary career of more than a half century, a stormy period for modern Japan.
In the early 1930s there was a sudden upsurge of ”proletarian literature” in Japan and many established writers turned ”left.” Tanizaki’s Tade kuu mushi (Some Prefer Nettles) suffered from the hostility of leftist critics, being condemned as ”bourgeois, decadent, reactionary.” But his next novel, Manji (Quicksand), was even more decadent, dealing with lesbian characters and promiscuity. Literary concession or conformity was out of the question for him, and it was not Tanizaki but the ”proletarian” writers who were soon submerged. He proved as bold and challenging in his technique of narration, though he was neither avant-garde nor experimental. His literary innovations were accomplished far more subtly. In Some Prefer Nettles, he managed to keep a delicate balance between the psychosexual analysis of domestic crisis and the theme of the central character’s cultural conversion from West to East. Quicksand is another triumph with its subtle blend of female confessions in Osaka dialect, badly written letters, and town gossip.
Tanizaki was one of the few Japanese writers who passed through the turbulent war years almost unscathed. Of course, there was a censorship problem, and Sasameyuki (The Makioka Sisters), serialized in a literary magazine, was stopped by the militaristic censors. But he continued to write consistently, and this novel of manners was completed three years after the war. Having successfully preserved the prewar mores and nuances of an upper-middle-class family in Osaka, he struck readers as a master of the art of survival.
Tanizaki proved himself a marvellous impersonator in narrative. He liked to use the first-person voice, which seemed apparently naive, but the range of adopted voices was very wide and rich in variety. The narrator in Chijin no ai (Naomi) is a middle-aged engineer who falls in love with a very young girl (anticipating Nabokov’s Lolita), and tries hard to ”educate” her into his ”ideal woman,” a highly Westernized type both in dress and manner. He is too successful: the girl becomes independent, and begins to tease and even tyrannize him. The whole story can be taken as an allegory, or even a moral lesson, concerning the folly of hasty Westernization, but the confessional voice of the protagonist provides a curious mixture of bitter self-mockery and sensual intoxication—he is both grieved and satisfied with the reversal of his plan. This masochistic element is discernible in many of Tanizaki’s stories, and probably rooted deeply in his personality. First-person narration is also used in ”Story of a Blind Masseur,” in which the blind protagonist reminisces about the attractive ladies whom he had adored and massaged.
Kagi (The Key) and Futen rojin nikki (Diary of a Mad Old Man) are minor masterpieces from Tanizaki’s last period, with the dotage and ecstasy of old age as common themes. They support the claim that Tanizaki be counted among the narrative masters of this century.
