Two or three times a day I think to myself: maybe I’ll die today. While recovering from a stroke, seventy-seven-year-old Utsugi turns to his diary to wryly record his struggle with his ageing body. Though impotent and in pain he notes down his growing desire for his beautiful daughter-in-law Satsuko, a chic, Westernised dancer with a shady past. Written when the author himself was an old man and shining with self-effacing humour, Tanizaki’s last novel is a tragicomedy about desire and the will to survive. ‘Lightly comic, lyrically evocative and savagely cruel’ New York Times ‘An artistic masterpiece’ Irish Times
