The Siren's Lament: Essential Stories
- Author: Tanizaki, Jun'ichiro
- ISBN: 9781782278092
- Availability:
$NZ 27.99
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The sage Confucius travels to a kingdom ruled by a struggling duke, whose pursuit of virtue is threatened by his consort's desire for pleasure. A naive servant elopes with his master's daughter, only to be plunged headlong into a world of murder and corruption. Exhausted by a lifestyle of never-ending debauchery, a young prince finds himself in possession of a dazzling, beguiling mermaid.
These three short stories, in a gorgeous new translation by Bryan Karetnyk, distil the essence of Jun'ichiro Tanizaki's shorter fiction: the co-mingling of Japanese and Chinese mythologies, the chillingly dark side of desire and the paper-thin line between the sublime and the depraved.