The Makioka Sisters (Vintage Classics Japanese Series)

Jan 1, 2026 11:57 PM

Author:Junichiro Tanizaki

An exquisite novel about four sisters living though a turbulent decade...I'd put it in the 10 greatest books of the 20th century' David Mitchell

'A near-perfect novel' Hanya Yanagihara

In the years leading up to the Second World War, four sisters live in dilapidated houses in Osaka and Ashiya, and each navigate their own complex, personal relationship to the fading lustre of the Makioka family name. Rich with breathtaking descriptions of ancient customs and an ever-changing natural world, Junichiro Tanizaki evokes in loving detail a long-lost way of life even as it withers under the harsh glare of modernity.

TRANSLATED BY EDWARD SEIDENSTICKER

VINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS - five masterpieces of Japanese fiction in gorgeous new gift editions.

Reviews

Exquisite craftsmanship

—— Guardian

An exquisite novel about four sisters living though a turbulent decade, during the Forties and Fifties, I'd put it in the 10 greatest books of the 20th century

—— David Mitchell

One of the books I return to frequently is Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Makioka Sisters: a near-perfect novel

—— Hanya Yanagihara

A complex, detailed and agreeably gossipy book...The author's obvious nostalgia for this vanished world does not prevent him from looking objectively at its darker side and this, together with his artful blend of the exotic and the mundane, creates an absorbing and richly textured story

—— Sunday Times

A subtle, moving novel

—— The Times

A classic novel of a whole country about to turn on the terrible hinge of the war into modernity; its tone is elegiac and bleak

—— Observer

The work of Tanizaki offers to us in the West one of the most valuable keys to understanding the Japanese crisis of identity

—— Independent

An extraordinary book which can truly be said to break new ground

—— New Yorker

The outstanding Japanese novelist of the century...The Makioka Sisters is his greatest book

—— Edmund White, , New York Times Book Review

Sensitive, thoughtful and rich with the spoils of its author's plunder of the past

—— Irish Independent

This is a tremendous book: affecting, intelligent, ironic, humane and utterly convincing. It is also extremely funny

—— Spectator

A brilliant read

—— Dermot O'Leary , Waitrose Weekend

A rich, imaginative, vividly characterised rite-of-passage tale

—— Nicolette Jones, The Sunday Times

High-octane adventure accompanies ingenious plotting

—— The Times

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