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A masterpiece of quiet lyricism set against a backdrop of change and renewal in suburban Tokyo.
The most celebrated work by one of Japan's master literary stylists, Evening Clouds is a book filled with delicate images of ordinary life, richly and precisely observed. A family moves into a new home on a windswept hilltop in western Tokyo. Around them are forests and farms. But the developers are coming, and the children are growing up. There are meals, quandaries, conversations...Life appears comfortable and serene, yet Shōno's portrayal has a strange and evocative undercurrent, as the most minute details slowly resonate out through a universe that is changing and unforgiving. Evening Clouds combines the crafted naturalism of haiku with the Ozu-like clarity of film to produce a story that is wistful and real. Read Shōno slowly, a luxuriate in his vision.
Recipient of the Pen Center West Literary Award
Recipient of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize
“Deceptively simple, yet nuanced and subtle…makes the Japanese family Japanese and universal at the same time.”
—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
“Shōno is one of the leading writers of postwar Japan, a master of simplicity and subtlety. The placid surfaces of his stories conceal a painful uncertainty about contemporary Japanese life. Lammers’ sensitive translations convey both the pain and placidity with moving clarity.”
—Van C. Gessel, Professor of Japanese, Brigham Young University
“Should be sipped and savored like warm sake”
—Small Press Magazine
“These stories are so artful…they seem like the artless productions of life itself.”
—Kenyon College Book Review
Junzo Shono was born in 1921 and lives in Kawasaki, Japan. Has won numerous literary awards, including the Yomiuri Prize for Evening Clouds.
Wayne P. Lammers is a translator of Japanese into English. He was translation editor for Mangajin and is considered one of the finest translators of Japanese literature today.