Junichiro Tanizaki was one of Japan's greatest twentienth century novelists. Born in 1886 in
Tokyo his first published work - a one-act play - appeared in 1910 in a literary magazine he
helped to found. Tanizaki lived in the cosmopolitan Tokyo area until the earthquake of 1923
when he moved to the Kyoto-Osaka region and became absorbed in Japan's past. All his most
important works were written after 1923 among them Some Prefer Nettles (1929) The Secret
History of the Lord of Musashi (1935) several modern versions of The Tale of Genji (1941 1954
and 1965) The Makioka Sisters The Key (1956) and Diary of a Mad Old Man (1961). He was
awarded an Imperial Award for Cultural Merit in 1949 and in 1965 he was elected an honorary
member of the American Academy and the National Institute of Arts and Letters the first
Japanese writer to receive this honour. Tanizaki died later that same year.
